Why it works: Sweet potato and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 414 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. 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. 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Mash the boiled sweet potatoes and pass them through a colander.
Make the filling
In a large bowl, combine the mashed sweet potatoes, eggs, sugar, milk, nutmeg, salt, vanilla, and melted butter. Mix until smooth and well combined.
Pour the mixture into a pie crust.
Bake
Bake for about 45 minutes or until set.
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.
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Sweet potato + nutmegtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together414 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
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Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,187 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Sweet potato + vanillatop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together189 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
- Sweet potatoes
- Provide the bulk and body of the filling, with a soft, smooth texture.
- Eggs
- Set the custard-like filling as they cook, giving it structure when baked.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown lightly at the edges.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and richness, creating a creamy, pourable custard base.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richer flavor and a silkier mouthfeel in the filling.
The step that matters
Bake until set. Eggs thicken as their proteins coagulate with heat. Pulling the pie too early leaves a runny centre, while overbaking can make the custard grainy or cracked.
Swap the sweet potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, milk, nutmeg, vanilla, butter):
- Sweet potatothe original
- Arrowrootfits about as well
- Potatofits less well
- Capsicumfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk, nutmeg, vanilla, butter. 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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