Why it works: Sweet potato and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,151 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Baked Sweet Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Slice sweet potatoes to about ½ inch thick.
Place in a baking pan with a little water.
Sprinkle white sugar thickly over the slices.
Spread each slice with butter.
Bake
Bake in the oven at 400°F (200°C) until browned.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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 + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,151 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
-
Sweet potato + buttertop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Form the main body of the dish, softening into a tender, starchy base as they bake.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the slices and caramelizes on the surface, adding browning and flavor.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, helping the surface brown and giving a smooth, savory-sweet finish.
The step that matters
Bake until browned. Sugar and butter brown only with enough dry oven heat. Pulling the dish too early leaves it pale and under-caramelized, while leaving it too long can scorch the sugar.
Swap the sweet potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter):
- Sweet potatothe original
- Leekfits about as well
- Potatofits about as well
- Capsicumfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter. 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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