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Dessert

Creamed Sweet Potatoes

A baked sweet potato dish with butter, sugar, milk, coconut, and marshmallow topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sweet potato and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 159 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Creamed 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.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil sweet potatoes until tender.

  2. Peel and cream the potatoes while hot, stirring in the butter, sugar, and milk.

  3. Add the coconut last.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the mixture in a baking dish, cover the top with marshmallows, and brown in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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 + coconuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together159 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  4. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  5. Sweet potato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together596 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Form the creamy, starchy base of the dish once boiled and mashed.
Marshmallows
Melt and brown on top in the oven, adding sweetness and a caramelized crust.
Milk
Adds moisture so the mashed potatoes become smooth and spreadable.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing to a smooth texture and flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown in the oven.
Coconut
Adds flavor and a chewy texture throughout the mixture.

The step that matters

Browning the marshmallow topping. Marshmallows scorch quickly at high heat, while too little heat leaves them pale and unmelted. Watching the bake in a moderate oven lets the sugars caramelize evenly.

Swap the sweet potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, coconut. 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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