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Dessert

Sweet-potato Pudding

A baked pudding made with grated sweet potatoes, butter, sugar, spices, eggs, lemon, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sweet-potato Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Let the sweet potatoes cool completely, then grate them.

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the egg yolks, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon juice, and lemon rind to the mixture.

  4. Gradually beat in the grated sweet potatoes until smooth.

  5. Stir in the brandy, then gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish and bake until set.

  2. Serve cold.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 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 + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together414 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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 starch that give the pudding its dense, moist body.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whites folded in add lightness and help it set.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing to a smooth, tender texture.
White sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps tenderize the batter when creamed with butter.
Brandy
Adds a distinct aroma and flavour to the pudding.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten whites hold air that gives lightness; overmixing or stirring vigorously deflates them, leaving a denser pudding. Fold gently so the air stays trapped before baking sets the structure.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sweet potato, butter, sugar, cinnamon, egg, nutmeg, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, butter, sugar, cinnamon, egg, nutmeg, 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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