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Dessert

Sweet Potato Pudding

A baked sweet potato pudding with molasses, brown sugar, spices, and a soft batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine grated sweet potatoes, butter, lard, molasses, brown sugar, milk, egg, cloves, allspice, ginger, and salt.

  2. Add water gradually to achieve a soft batter consistency.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

  2. Bake for 2 hours, stirring 2 or 3 times during baking.

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Sweet potato + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together105 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  4. Sweet potato + clovetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together228 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  5. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 pudding and give it a dense, moist body.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark color, and a rich flavor during baking.
Egg
Helps bind the batter so the pudding sets rather than falling apart.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter.

The step that matters

Adding water gradually. Water should be added slowly so the batter reaches a soft, pourable consistency. Too much liquid at once can make the pudding watery and slow to set, while too little leaves it stiff and dry.

Swap the sweet potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, molasses, sugar, milk, egg, clove, allspice):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, molasses, sugar, milk, egg, clove, allspice. 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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