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Sweet-potato Corn-bread

A cornbread made with sweet potatoes, cornmeal, milk, butter, brown sugar, eggs, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Corn-bread

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.

Make the batter

  1. Boil and mash the sweet potatoes.

  2. Cream the butter and brown sugar together.

  3. Add the creamed mixture to the mashed potatoes.

  4. Beat the eggs well and stir them into the mixture.

  5. Add the milk and then the cornmeal, mixing well.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a pan and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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. Milk + sweet potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together596 recipes

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

  3. Sweet potato + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,151 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavour in the crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the top brown during baking.
Sweet potatoes
Add moisture, body and natural sweetness to the batter.
Cornmeal
Provides the main structure and the grainy texture of the cornbread.
Milk
Hydrates the cornmeal and gives the batter a smooth, pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and brown sugar. Beating butter and sugar together traps air in the fat, which helps the cornbread rise and keeps the crumb light and tender rather than dense.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Sweet potatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

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