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Dessert

Candied Sweet Potatoes

Candied sweet potatoes are boiled, peeled, sliced, and baked with sugar, butter, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,505 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Candied Sweet Potatoes

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the sweet potatoes whole with the skins on until tender.

  2. Remove from heat and peel the potatoes.

  3. Slice the potatoes and place them in a shallow baking tin.

Bake and serve

  1. Sprinkle with sugar and dot with butter.

  2. Cover with sherry.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until the wine has cooked away.

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 + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  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 + sherrytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together34 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

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 boiled and then baked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the potato surfaces caramelize and brown in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and helping the top brown as it melts.
Sherry
Adds aroma and flavour as it cooks away, leaving the sweet potatoes moist and glazed.

The step that matters

Bake until the wine has cooked away. Sherry added before baking must reduce fully so the dish does not stay wet and boozy. Stopping early leaves a thin, harsh liquid, while baking long enough lets the sugar and butter form a glossy, concentrated glaze.

Swap the sweet potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, sherry. 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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