Name: Sweet Potato Bread
Ingredients: sweet potatoes; flour; grated coconut

Why it works: Sweet potato and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 159 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

sweet potatoes
flour
grated coconut

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the sweet potato bread as previously described.
Roll the dough thin.
Cut into fanciful shapes using cake cutters.
Alternatively, make a dough similar to Premium Bread, adding grated coconut.
Roll thin and cut into desired forms.
Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

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.

Sweet potato + coconuttop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together159 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Sweet potato + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together627 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + coconuttop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,315 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).