Name: Sweet Potato Custard Pie
Ingredients: 1 pound sweet potatoes, baked and sifted; ½ pound butter; ¾ pound sugar; 1 pint milk; 6 eggs; 1 teaspoon nutmeg; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; ⅓ cup brandy; pastry crust

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Custard 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).

Make the filling

In a bowl, combine the baked and sifted sweet potatoes, butter, sugar, milk, eggs, nutmeg, cinnamon, and brandy, and mix until smooth and well combined.
Line a pie dish with the pastry crust.
Pour the sweet potato mixture into the crust.

Bake and serve

Bake for 45-50 minutes or until set.
Let cool before serving.

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.

Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Sweet potato + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together539 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sweet potato + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together414 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 custard filling, with moisture and flavor.
Eggs: Set the filling into a firm, sliceable custard as they cook.
Milk: Adds moisture and liquid that the eggs set into a smooth custard.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a tender texture.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the custard brown lightly as it bakes.
Brandy: Adds aroma and a warm, spirited flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs thicken as their proteins coagulate with heat. Underbaking leaves the custard runny, while overbaking can make it grainy or cracked, so check for a set center rather than relying only on the time.

“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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Sweet Potato Custard Pie