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Dessert

Sweet-potato Pone

A baked sweet potato cake made with grated sweet potatoes, sweet milk, ginger, butter, sugar, and optional orange rind and juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,833 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Sweet-potato Pone

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 grate enough sweet potatoes to fill a quart bowl quickly to prevent discoloration.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the grated potatoes with sweet milk, ginger, softened butter, and sugar.

  2. If using, add the grated rind and juice of the orange.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a buttered pan.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 1 hour, or until the potatoes are fully cooked.

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. Ginger + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Sweet potato + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together306 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

  4. Sweet potato + orangetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together191 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

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

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 pone and give it a dense, moist, starchy body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, keeping the baked pone tender and moist.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and liquid so the grated potatoes can soften and set through baking.
Powdered ginger
Adds warm, spicy aroma and flavour to the sweet potato base.

The step that matters

Grate the sweet potatoes quickly. Raw grated sweet potato darkens quickly when exposed to air through enzymatic browning. Working fast keeps the batter pale and appealing before baking.

Swap the orange

The recipe marks orange as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sweet potato, milk, ginger, butter, sugar):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, milk, ginger, 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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