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Dessert

Sweet Potato Pudding

A baked sweet potato pudding made with grated sweet potatoes, milk, cinnamon, sugar, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Mix and bake

  1. In a large bowl, combine the grated sweet potatoes, milk, cinnamon, sugar, and melted butter.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

  4. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until set and lightly browned on top.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cinnamon + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, body and starchy texture of the pudding.
Milk
Supplies moisture and forms the liquid base that sets into a custard.
Eggs
Set when heated, binding the pudding into a sliceable custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and spice flavour to the sweet potato base.

The step that matters

Bake until set. The beaten eggs coagulate as they heat, binding the milk and sweet potato into a firm custard. Removing the pudding too early leaves a loose, runny centre, while overbaking can make it dry or grainy.

“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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