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Dessert

Sweet Potato Pudding

A baked sweet potato custard made with milk, eggs, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Sweet Potato Pudding

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

  1. Peel and wash the sweet potato, then grate it.

  2. Heat the milk in a saucepan.

  3. Stir the grated potato into the hot milk and let it boil.

  4. In a bowl, beat the eggs until creamy.

Make the pudding

  1. Add the butter to the milk and potato mixture, then remove from heat.

  2. Stir the beaten eggs into the milk and potato mixture, seasoning with salt and pepper.

  3. Pour the mixture into an earthen dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes or until firm.

Serve

  1. Serve hot as a vegetable or sweeten for dessert.

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

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

  2. Sweet potato + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,015 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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 potato
Provides starch and body, thickening the milk and giving the pudding its texture and flavor.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that sets with the eggs into a soft, custard-like pudding.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the pudding structure and firmness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stirring the beaten eggs into the hot mixture. If the milk and potato mixture is too hot when the eggs go in, the egg proteins can scramble, leaving lumps instead of a smooth custard. Removing the pan from heat first lowers the risk.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Sweet potatothe original

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