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Dessert

Caramel Sweet Potatoes

A baked sweet potato dish sweetened with sugar, cinnamon, butter, and corn syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Caramel Sweet Potatoes

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.

Make the mixture

  1. Mix sugar and cinnamon, then add hot milk and melted butter to the mashed sweet potatoes.

  2. Beat the mixture with a wire beater until light and fluffy.

Shape and bake

  1. Form the mixture into a mound on a well-buttered plate.

  2. Create round cavities about 1.5 inches deep around the mound and fill them with corn syrup.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until slightly browned.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Sweet potato + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together153 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Cinnamon + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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 mound, providing starch and moisture for a soft, fluffy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during baking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the mashed potatoes.
Corn syrup
Fills the cavities and caramelizes in the oven, adding sweetness and glossy color.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the mashed mixture.

The step that matters

Baking until slightly browned. Corn syrup and sugar darken quickly in heat. Pulling the dish when it is just golden keeps the syrup caramelized without burning or drying the potatoes.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Sweet potatothe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Potatofits less well
  4. Arrowrootfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, butter, corn, syrup, milk. 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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