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Dessert

Sweet Potato Pudding

A baked pudding made from mashed potatoes, sugar, egg, milk, butter, and coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

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 potatoes

  1. Cook the potatoes in their jackets until very soft.

  2. Mash the potatoes while hot.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the mashed potatoes, butter, and sugar to a smooth paste.

  2. Add the egg, then the coconut, then the milk.

  3. Beat thoroughly.

  4. Pour the mixture into a deep granite pudding dish.

  5. Sprinkle the top with coconut and sugar.

Bake

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for thirty 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  4. Potato + coconuttop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together375 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Form the body of the pudding and give it a soft, dense texture.
Egg
Binds the mixture and helps it set as it bakes.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and softens the mixture into a pourable batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the top brown in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a smoother, more tender texture.
Shredded coconut
Adds chewy texture and flavor, and toasts on top as it bakes.

The step that matters

Beat thoroughly. Beating the mixture well distributes the egg and fat evenly through the potato, so the pudding bakes smooth rather than streaky or lumpy with pockets of butter and egg.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, butter, coconut. 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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