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Dessert

Sweet Potato Pie

A baked pie made with mashed sweet potatoes, milk, butter, sugar, vanilla, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. 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

  1. Pour the milk over the mashed sweet potatoes and strain through a colander.

  2. Beat the egg yolks until light.

  3. Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the vanilla.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites until stiff.

Bake and serve

  1. Combine all ingredients and pour into a pie crust.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until done, then sprinkle sugar over the top.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Sweet potato + vanillatop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together189 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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, with moisture and natural sweetness.
Eggs
Set the filling as it bakes and add richness and structure; whites are whipped for lightness.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture when creamed with sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps create a smooth, creamed base.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the filling.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites until stiff. Whipped whites trap air that gives lightness. Folding gently keeps that air in; overmixing deflates the whites, leaving a denser pie.

Swap the sweet potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, vanilla, 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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