Name: Sweet Potato Pie
Ingredients: one pound of potatoes; half pound of butter; one pint of milk; a pound of sugar; six eggs; one crust; three pies; nutmeg; cinnamon

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Pie

three pies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

Bake and rub one pound of potatoes through a sieve.
Add a half pound of butter, three-quarters of a pound of sugar, one pint of milk and six eggs.
Flavor with nutmeg or cinnamon and beat the whole together thoroughly.

Bake

Bake with one crust.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

557Calories

19 gProtein

26 gFat

65 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 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
Nutmeg	1 tsp ground (2.2g)	12
Cinnamon	1 tsp ground (2.6g)	6
Pie	not in our table	0

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

By Goff, May Perrin, [from old catalog] ed. 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.

Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,052 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Provide the main body and thick, smooth texture of the filling.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender, silky mouthfeel.
Eggs: Add structure and help the filling set as it bakes.
Milk: Adds moisture and liquid that gives the filling its creamy consistency.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown lightly in the oven.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, sugar, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon):

Sweet potatofits better
Capsicumfits about as well
Arrowrootfits about as well
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, sugar, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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.