Name: Sweet Potato Pudding
Ingredients: 3 or 4 medium raw sweet potatoes, grated; 4 tablespoons butter, sliced; 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg; 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon; 2 tablespoons brown sugar; 1/3 cup rosewater; 1 cup heavy cream; 1/3 cup wine; 1/3 cup brandy

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Assemble

In a dish, layer half of the grated sweet potatoes and top with slices of butter.
Sprinkle with nutmeg, cinnamon, and brown sugar.
Add the remaining grated sweet potatoes, more butter, and sugar.
In a bowl, mix rosewater, cream, wine, and brandy, then stir into the sweet potato mixture.

Bake and serve

Bake for 2 hours and serve hot as a 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.

Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Sweet potato + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together539 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sweet potato + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together414 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

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 pudding, providing starch and body as they cook.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and keeping the pudding moist as it bakes.
Heavy cream: Adds fat and moisture, giving the pudding a smooth, rich, custard-like texture.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and molasses flavour, and helps the surface brown during baking.
Brandy: Adds aroma and depth of flavour to the pudding.

Swap the sweet potato

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

Sweet potatothe original
Arrowrootfits about as well
Shallotfits about as well
Potatofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, nutmeg, cinnamon, sugar, cream, wine, 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.