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Sweet-potato Custard Pie

A custard pie made with sweet potatoes, milk, orange, cinnamon, and brandy, topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sweet potato and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 539 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Sweet-potato Custard Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Parboil the sweet potatoes for 30 minutes; set aside to cool.

  2. Once cool, peel and grate the sweet potatoes.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, beat together the butter, soft sugar, and egg yolks until very light.

  2. Gradually add the grated sweet potatoes while stirring continuously.

  3. Mix in the milk, orange juice, orange rind, ground cinnamon, and brandy.

Bake the pie

  1. Line a deep pie dish with Good Plain Paste, building up the edges with 1 or 2 extra layers and notching neatly.

  2. Fill the pie crust with the sweet potato mixture and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

Add the meringue and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites until foamy, then gradually add the powdered sugar while continuing to beat until stiff and glossy.

  2. Once the pie is baked, heap the meringue on top, sift a little granulated sugar over it, and place it in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 2 minutes until slightly browned, watching carefully to prevent scorching.

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 + cinnamontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together539 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Sweet potato + orangetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together191 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. 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
Form the bulk of the filling, giving body, moisture and natural sweetness.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and set the custard; whites whip into the meringue for lift.
Milk
Provides the liquid that, with the eggs, sets the custard as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the filling.
Soft sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it beat up light and creamy.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily into the whites, helping the meringue become stiff and glossy.

The step that matters

Browning the meringue. The sugar on top darkens much faster than the egg proteins set at high heat, so the meringue can scorch within minutes. A short bake with close watching gives gold peaks without burnt sugar.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sweet potato, milk, sugar, cinnamon, butter, brandy, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, milk, sugar, cinnamon, butter, brandy, egg. 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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