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Baked Sweet Potatoes

A simple baked sweet potato dish with butter, sugar, and sea salt.

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

Why it works: Sweet potato and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,151 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Baked 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 and bake

  1. Brush the sweet potatoes clean.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 to 1.5 hours, depending on size.

  3. Check for doneness by pressing with fingers; they should feel soft.

Finish and serve

  1. If there are leftovers, peel, slice, and broil them.

  2. Butter and salt the slices immediately after broiling.

  3. To brown in the oven, brush with butter and sprinkle with sugar.

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

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

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. 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
Provide the main body of the dish, cooking to a soft, tender flesh.
Butter
Adds moisture and richness, and helps the surface brown when brushed on.
Sugar
Sprinkled on the surface, it caramelises and browns in the oven for sweetness.

The step that matters

Checking for doneness. Sweet potatoes vary in size, so the set time is only a guide. Pressing to feel for softness confirms the starch has fully gelatinised and the flesh is tender throughout.

Swap the sweet potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar. 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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