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Dessert

Sweet Potato Pie

A baked pie with sweet potato, sugar, cinnamon, eggs, milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and sweet potato 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 Pie

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

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

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the mashed sweet potatoes, sugar, butter, cinnamon, and egg yolks.

  2. Stir in the milk and beaten egg whites.

Fill and bake

  1. Line a deep pie plate with the pie crust.

  2. Pour the mixture into the crust and bake until set.

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 + sweet potatotop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together539 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

Sugar and cinnamon 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

Eggs
Set the filling into a custard as they heat, giving the pie its structure.
Mashed sweet potatoes
Provide the main body, moisture and smooth texture of the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the savoury notes of the sweet potato.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender mouthfeel.
Rich milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, thinning the filling so it bakes evenly.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and spice that complements the sweet potato.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins firm as they heat, so the filling is done when the centre just wobbles. Overbaking makes the custard weep, crack or turn 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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