Why it works: Sweet potato and cinnamon 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 Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the filling
In a bowl, mix the mashed sweet potato, beaten eggs, sugar, milk, melted butter, flour, salt, and cinnamon until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a pie crust.
Bake
Bake for about 45 minutes or until set.
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.
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Sweet potato + cinnamontop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together539 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sweet potato + flourtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together627 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Sweet potato
- Provides the bulk and body of the filling, with natural sweetness and a smooth texture.
- Eggs
- Set the custard as they cook, giving the pie its firm, sliceable structure.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown lightly at the edges.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and richness, helping the filling bake into a creamy custard.
- Flour
- Thickens the filling slightly, giving it more stability as it bakes.
The step that matters
Bake until set. Eggs thicken as they heat, so the pie should be baked until the center is set but not overbaked. Overbaking can cause the custard to crack, weep, or turn grainy.
Swap the sweet potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, milk, butter, flour, cinnamon):
- Sweet potatothe original
- Arrowrootfits about as well
- Chivefits less well
- Potatofits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk, butter, flour, 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.
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