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Dessert

Sweet Potato Pudding

A steamed sweet potato pudding with butter, sugar, lemon, eggs, and mixed fruit, baked or steamed in molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Steam the sweet potatoes until cooked, then peel and mash them through a fine colander.

  2. Add the butter, sugar, lemon flavoring, and egg yolks to the mashed sweet potatoes and mix well.

  3. Fold in the mixed fruit.

Finish and cook

  1. Let the mixture cool, then gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Butter and flour small pudding molds, then fill them with the mixture.

  3. Steam or bake the molds as you would a Carolina cake.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sweet potato + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together314 recipes

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Sweet potato + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,151 recipes

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 pudding, with starch that sets as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the mixture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help it set into a firm, custard-like body.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in, they lighten the pudding and give it an airy, tender crumb.
Mixed fruit
Adds moisture, sweetness and fruity flavor throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten egg whites trap air that gives lift and lightness. Folding gently keeps that air in, while stirring vigorously or adding them to a warm mixture can deflate them and make the pudding dense.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Sweet potatothe original
  2. Arrowrootfits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, lemon, egg, syrup. 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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