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Dessert

Sweet Potato Pudding

A baked sweet potato pudding in a pie crust with sugar, butter, eggs, cream, spices, and a splash of wine or lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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).

Make the filling

  1. In a large bowl, combine the mashed sweet potatoes, sugar, and butter.

  2. Add the eggs and cream or milk, mixing well.

  3. Flavor the mixture with cinnamon, allspice, and a little wine or lemon.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the pie crust.

  2. Bake for about 45 minutes or 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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sweet potato + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together105 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Provide the main body and starchy structure of the pudding filling.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps caramelize surfaces during baking for light browning.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, producing a smoother, more tender texture.
Cream or rich milk
Adds moisture and fat, making the filling silkier and more custard-like.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as proteins coagulate with heat. Pulling the pudding too early leaves it runny, while over-baking can make it grainy or cracked. Check for a set centre rather than relying only on time.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sweet potato, sugar, butter, egg, cream, cinnamon, wine):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, sugar, butter, egg, cream, cinnamon, wine. 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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