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Dessert

Sweet Potatoes

Baked sweet potatoes with sugar, butter, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Sweet Potatoes

Why it works: Butter and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,645 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Sweet Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Parboil the sweet potatoes, then skin and slice them.

  2. Layer the slices in a baking dish.

Season and bake

  1. Sprinkle with white sugar and add bits of butter.

  2. Pour 1 teaspoon of wine over the layers.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

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

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sweet potato + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,491 recipes

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

  5. Sweet potato + winetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together150 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potatoes
Form the main body of the dish, becoming soft and tender when parboiled and baked.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the sugared surface brown in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the top brown and the potatoes taste rounder.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma that balance the sweetness of the sugar and potatoes.

The step that matters

Bake until browned. Sugar and butter brown only with enough oven heat and time, but over-baking can dry the potatoes and scorch the sugar. Watch for an even golden top rather than relying on the clock alone.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Sweet potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, 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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