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Dessert

Sweet Potato Pudding

A baked sweet potato pudding made with grated sweet potato, milk, eggs, sugar, molasses, butter, flour, spices, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine grated sweet potato, milk, eggs, sugar, molasses, butter, flour, cinnamon, spice, ginger, nutmeg, and baking powder. Mix well until smooth.

  2. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until it begins to brown. Stir well.

  2. Let it brown again. Stir.

  3. Brown once more before serving.

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

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sweet potato + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together627 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 potato
Forms the body of the pudding and adds moisture and natural sweetness.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking to give the pudding its structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, and helps the custard-like texture set.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness and color, and promotes browning in the oven.
Flour
Thickens the batter slightly so it holds together while baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, helping the pudding rise and become lighter.

The step that matters

Stirring and browning during baking. The record calls for stirring and letting the pudding brown in stages. Stirring redistributes the heavier, set edges and the liquid underneath, so the texture stays even. Browning depends on sugars and molasses caramelizing, so the surface must be watched rather than left unattended.

Swap the sweet potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, molasses, butter, flour, cinnamon. 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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