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Sweet Potato Pudding

A baked sweet potato pudding made with grated sweet potato, eggs, sugar, flour, sweet milk, nutmeg, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 Pudding

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

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

  2. In a bowl, combine the grated sweet potato, beaten eggs, sugar, flour, sweet milk, and nutmeg.

  3. In a pudding dish, melt the butter until hot.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the pudding batter into the hot butter.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until done.

  3. Serve hot with additional butter.

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. Sweet potato + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together414 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sweet potato + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together627 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 potato
Provides the bulk and moist, tender body of the pudding.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set into a firm, custard-like texture.
All-purpose flour
Adds structure so the pudding holds its shape after baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and aids gentle browning on the surface.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the batter for even baking.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and richness, and helps keep the pudding moist.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into the hot butter. Pouring the batter into already-hot melted butter starts the bottom setting right away and helps create a crisp, browned edge. Cold butter would give a greasier, paler result.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Sweet potatothe original
  2. Arrowrootfits about as well
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Shallotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, milk, nutmeg, 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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