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Dessert

Caeolina Cake, with Sabayon Sauce

A sweet potato cake baked with milk, corn starch, citron, raisins, currants, rum, eggs, and served with Sabayon sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sweet potato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 153 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Caeolina Cake, with Sabayon Sauce

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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Prepare the sweet potatoes as in the previous recipe and pound them through a fine colander.

  2. Mix the potatoes with the milk and corn starch until well combined and cold.

  3. Add the citron, raisins, currants, and rum, mixing well.

  4. Slowly incorporate the raw eggs and egg yolks, sweetening to taste.

Fill and bake

  1. Grease small pudding molds with butter and dust the molds with flour.

  2. Fill the molds with the mixture and place them in a pan with an inch of water.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

  4. Alternatively, line a square pan with buttered paper, fill the pan with the mixture, and bake as above.

Serve

  1. Once cooled, cut the cake into pieces.

  2. Serve with Sabayon sauce.

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 + corntop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together153 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Sweet potato + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together19 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Milk + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together967 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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 and body of the cake's starchy base.
Eggs
Set the mixture when baked, giving the cake structure and richness.
Egg yolks
Add richness, fat and emulsifying power, producing a tender, custard-like crumb.
Corn starch
Thickens the mixture and helps it hold its shape when cooled.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, and helps form a smooth custard-like batter.

The step that matters

Baking in a water bath. Placing the molds in a pan of water moderates the oven heat around the custard, so the eggs set gently without curdling or becoming rubbery and cracked.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sweet potato, milk, corn, raisin, rum, egg, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, milk, corn, raisin, rum, egg, 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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