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Dessert

Sweet Potatoes in Cases

A baked sweet potato dish topped with butter, sugar, whipped cream, and meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Sweet Potatoes in Cases

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Wash the sweet potatoes.

  2. Bake the sweet potatoes at 400°F (200°C) until done.

  3. Wrap each potato in a cloth and twist gently, pressing from the ends.

  4. Cut a small opening in the top of each potato and scoop out the contents.

Make the filling

  1. Mash the sweet potato in a saucepan over medium heat, adding butter and sugar to taste.

  2. If the mixture is too stiff, add more butter or fold in some whipped cream.

Fill and bake

  1. Refill the potato skins with the mixture.

  2. Cover with meringue.

  3. Bake until slightly browned.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Sweet potato + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,151 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  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
Provide the starchy, moist base that makes up the filling and the skins.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, making the mashed filling smooth and silky.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown lightly in the oven.
Meringue
Forms a sweet topping that sets and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Mashing the filling while it is hot. Stiff filling results from starch cooling and firming, so mash it warm and add butter or cream as needed to keep it smooth and spoonable.

Swap the sweet potato

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

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

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