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Dessert

Sweet-potato Pudding

A baked sweet potato custard made with eggs, butter, sugar, spices, rose water or wine, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the potato

  1. Boil the sweet potato in a little water until done.

  2. Remove the sweet potato, peel, and mash until smooth.

Make the pudding

  1. Beat the eggs until very light.

  2. Add the creamed butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, rose water or wine, and sweet cream to the eggs; stir well.

  3. Gradually mix in the mashed sweet potato, stirring vigorously.

Bake

  1. Butter a deep dish.

  2. Pour in the pudding mixture.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sweet potato + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together414 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 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 potato
Provides the bulk and starchy body that gives the pudding its soft, dense texture.
Eggs
Beaten light, they set during baking to give the pudding structure.
Butter
Creamed into the mixture, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the baked pudding a tender texture.
Sweet cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the custard-like texture.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in the mashed sweet potato. Adding the potato slowly and stirring well keeps the batter smooth and evenly combined, so no lumps of potato or pockets of fat remain in the baked pudding.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Sweet potatothe original
  2. Arrowrootfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits less well
  4. Potatofits less well

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