Name: Sweet Potato Custard Pie
Ingredients: one-third cup butter; one-half cup sugar; one tablespoon juice; one tablespoon cinnamon; one-half cup milk; one medium sized sweet potato; three eggs; one crust until custard is set

Why it works: Cinnamon and sweet potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 539 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Custard Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

Combine one medium sized sweet potato, one-third cup butter, one-half cup sugar, rind of a lemon, one tablespoon lemon juice, teaspoon vanilla, one tablespoon cinnamon, one-half cup milk, and yolks of three eggs.
Bake slowly in one crust until custard is set.

Finish and brown

After pie is taken from oven, let cool and cover with currant jelly.
Beat egg whites very stiff with a little sugar, spread over pie and brown in oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

545Calories

19 gProtein

25 gFat

64 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 6 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Potato	1 medium (173g) baked	161
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Cinnamon	1 tsp ground (2.6g)	6

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Chicago. Bethany union church. Woman's society. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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.

Cinnamon + sweet potatotop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together539 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,784 recipes

Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potato: Provides the bulk and body of the custard filling.
Eggs: Yolks set the custard, while whites whip into a stiff meringue topping.
Butter: Adds richness and a tender, smooth texture to the filling.
Milk: Adds moisture and helps the custard set softly.
Sugar: Sweetens the filling and helps the meringue brown.

The step that matters

Bake slowly until the custard is set. Egg proteins set gently at moderate heat. If the oven runs too hot, the custard can overcook, curdle, or weep liquid, leaving a grainy texture.

“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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Sweet Potato Custard Pie