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Dessert

Silvy's Sweet Potato Custard

A custard made with sweet potatoes, butter, milk, eggs, sugar, brandy, and nutmeg, baked in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Silvy's Sweet Potato Custard

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Boil sweet potatoes until done, then mash while still hot with butter.

  2. Add rich milk and press through a colander.

  3. Cream egg yolks with sugar, then mix into the potato mixture.

  4. Flavor with nutmeg and add brandy.

  5. Fold in beaten egg whites until frothy.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour into a pie pan lined with crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  2. Sift powdered sugar over the top before serving.

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

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

  2. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  4. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the custard once mashed smooth.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set firm when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped in to lighten the texture and add airiness to the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the mash.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and balances the earthy potato flavor.
Rich milk
Adds moisture and creaminess so the filling bakes smooth.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when beaten properly; overmixing or deflating them loses lift, leaving a denser custard. Fold gently so the filling stays light before it sets in the oven.

Swap the sweet potato

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

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

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