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Dessert

Sweet Potato Pone

A baked sweet potato cake made with molasses, butter, ginger, candied orange peel, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,833 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Pone

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Peel and grate the sweet potatoes.

Mix and bake

  1. In a large bowl, combine the grated sweet potatoes, molasses, butter, preserved ginger, candied orange peel, mixed spices, ground ginger, and salt. Mix all ingredients well.

  2. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered deep baking pan.

  3. Bake slowly until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean and the top is a rich dark brown.

Serve

  1. Cut into 1-inch thick slices and serve hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Ginger + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Sweet potato + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together306 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Sweet potato + orangetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together191 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sweet potato + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,491 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Provide the bulk and starchy body that holds the pone together as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and dark color, and helps the top brown deeply during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a moist, tender crumb.
Preserved ginger
Adds sharp, aromatic heat that cuts through the sweetness of the molasses.
Mixed spices
Provide aroma that gives the pone its warm, spiced flavor.

The step that matters

Bake slowly until a knife comes out clean and the top is dark brown. Sweet potato and molasses are dense and high in sugar, so a hot oven can scorch the top before the center sets. Slow baking lets the custard-like interior cook through while the sugars brown gradually.

Swap the sweet potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, butter, ginger, orange):

  1. Carrotfits about as well
  2. Sweet potatothe original
  3. Capsicumfits less well
  4. Beetrootfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, butter, ginger, orange. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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