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Dessert

Sweet Potato Puddixc

A baked sweet potato pudding flavored with lemon, orange, mace, cinnamon, and butter, served hot or cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Puddixc

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Grate the sweet potatoes and set aside.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. Stir in the grated sweet potatoes, lemon juice and rind, orange juice and rind, mace, cinnamon, and salt.

  4. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 30 minutes until set.

  2. Serve hot or cold, optionally with a sauce made from ½ cup sherry and 2 tablespoons brandy.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sweet potato + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together539 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set into a firm, custard-like pudding when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture when creamed with the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps create a light, creamed base.
Sweet potatoes
Provide the bulk, moisture and body of the pudding.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sweet potato, butter, sugar, egg, lemon, orange, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, butter, sugar, egg, lemon, orange, 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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