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Scalloped Sweet Potatoes

A baked dish of sweet potatoes topped with brown sugar, butter, and heavy cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Scalloped Sweet Potatoes

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scalloped Sweet Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Parboil sweet potatoes until tender.

  2. Remove skins and slice lengthwise.

  3. Place in a baking dish.

Assemble

  1. Sprinkle generously with brown sugar.

  2. Dot with diced butter throughout the potatoes.

  3. Pour 1 ½ cups of heavy cream over the top.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until a nice brown caramel forms over the potatoes.

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.

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.

  1. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sweet potato + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,151 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sweet potato + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 bulk of the dish, turning soft and tender as they bake.
Brown sugar
Melts and caramelizes on top, adding sweetness and deep browning.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the potatoes as it melts.
Heavy cream
Supplies moisture and richness that thickens into a creamy sauce around the potatoes.

The step that matters

Bake until the caramel forms. Sugar browns and caramelizes only at high heat over time. Pull the dish too early and the sugar stays pale and the cream stays thin. Leave it too long and the sugar can scorch and turn bitter.

Swap the sweet potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, cream):

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Sweet potatothe original
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, cream. 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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