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Dessert

Sweet Potato Pie

A baked pie with sweet potato filling, butter, sugar, eggs, spices, lemon, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 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.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Parboil the sweet potatoes.

  2. Peel the sweet potatoes.

  3. Grate the sweet potatoes when cold.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the egg yolks, cinnamon, nutmeg, grated sweet potatoes, lemon juice, lemon rind, and brandy to the mixture.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Bake and serve

  1. Line a large pie plate with puff pastry.

  2. Fill the pastry with the mixture.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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 filling once grated and mixed in.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps cream the butter into a light base.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in to add lightness and help the filling rise slightly.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright aroma that balance the sweetness of the filling.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Deflating the whipped egg whites removes the air that gives lightness, so folding slowly keeps the filling airy and evenly set after baking.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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