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Dessert

Creamed Sweet Potatoes

A baked sweet potato dish topped with a light meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Creamed Sweet Potatoes

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 potato base

  1. Boil sweet potatoes until soft, then mash and measure 3 cups. Keep the mashed potatoes warm during preparation.

  2. Add salt, paprika, butter, and beaten egg yolks to the potatoes, then mix in the cream.

  3. Beat the mixture until light and creamy.

  4. Transfer to a buttered pudding dish.

Make the meringue and bake

  1. For the meringue, beat egg whites until stiff, then gradually add sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the potato mixture.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until the meringue is delicately browned.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, 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 bulk and soft, moist body of the casserole.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and set the potato base, while whites whip into a stable meringue.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the potato mixture.
Cream
Adds moisture and softness, giving the base a creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Whites must be whipped to firm peaks before sugar is added, since under-whipped foam collapses and the meringue weeps or fails to hold its shape in the oven.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Sweet potatothe original

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