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Dessert

Grated Sweet Potato Pudding

A baked pudding made with grated sweet potato, nuts, cane syrup, sugar, spices, milk, eggs, and butter, topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Grated Sweet Potato Pudding

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.

Make the mixture

  1. In an iron skillet, melt the butter.

  2. Stir in all ingredients except the nuts.

  3. Add the nuts when the mixture is half done.

  4. Add 1 cup of hot water if the mixture gets very stiff.

Bake and serve

  1. Cook in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 40 minutes.

  2. Serve almost cold with whipped cream.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sweet potato + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together306 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Grated sweet potato
Forms the bulk of the pudding and keeps it moist and tender.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it into a sliceable pudding as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender crumb.
Georgia cane syrup
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the top brown during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and promotes browning on the surface.
Milk
Adds liquid that moistens the batter and softens the starch.

The step that matters

Adding hot water when the mixture stiffens. Sweet potato and eggs thicken as they cook, and a stiff mixture can bake dry and dense. Loosening it with hot water keeps the texture moist and even.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, syrup, sugar, ginger, milk, cinnamon, 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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