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Candied Sweet Potatoes

Sweet potatoes cooked in butter and brown sugar syrup until soft.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and sweet potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,151 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Candied Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt the butter and brown sugar together until thickened.

  2. Pare the sweet potatoes and add them to the syrup.

  3. Add the water and boil until the sweet potatoes are soft.

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. Sugar + sweet potatotop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,151 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + sweet potatotop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,491 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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 potatoes
Form the bulk of the dish and turn tender as they simmer in the syrup.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the dish and thickens with the butter into a glossy syrup that coats the potatoes.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the brown sugar form a smooth, thickened syrup.

The step that matters

Boil until the sweet potatoes are soft. Boiling too briefly leaves the potato centres firm, while overcooking can make the pieces break apart in the syrup. Testing for tenderness with a knife or fork keeps the texture right.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Sweet potatothe original
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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