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Sweet Potato Croquettes

Sweet potato croquettes are fried balls made from mashed sweet potatoes, butter, cream, sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, egg yolk, and egg white, coated in breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Sweet Potato Croquettes

Why it works: Sweet potato and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 539 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Croquettes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Bake and mash the sweet potatoes until very fine.

  2. Beat in the butter, cream, sugar, salt, lemon juice, cinnamon, and egg yolk until creamy.

  3. Fold in the whipped egg white gently.

Shape and coat

  1. Form the mixture into cones or cylinders.

  2. Dip each in beaten egg and coat with bread crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in boiling oil until golden brown.

  2. Drain on kitchen paper, sprinkle with sugar, and serve immediately.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sweet potato + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together539 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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 starchy body of the filling, with natural sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the filling a smooth, creamy texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness to the mashed filling.
Egg yolk
Enriches the filling and helps bind it into a cohesive mixture.
Egg white
Whipped and folded in, it adds lightness and airiness to the mixture.

The step that matters

Fold in the whipped egg white gently. Whipped egg white holds air that gives lightness. Vigorous stirring deflates the foam, leaving the croquettes dense and heavy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, butter, cream, sugar, cinnamon, egg, bread. 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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