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Dessert

S-wtset Potato Pudding

A baked sweet potato pudding with eggs, sugar, butter, brandy, nutmeg, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sweet potato and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 414 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

S-wtset Potato Pudding

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 filling

  1. Boil the sweet potatoes until very tender, then press them through a colander.

  2. In a bowl, combine the sweet potatoes, eggs, sugar, butter, brandy, nutmeg, and lemon rind.

Bake and finish

  1. Prepare a pie dish with a pastry crust and pour the mixture into it.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until done.

  3. Once baked, sprinkle the top with white sugar.

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 + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together414 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  3. Sweet potato + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together314 recipes

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

  4. Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 starchy body that sets the pudding's soft, dense texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it as it bakes, giving the pudding structure.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a smoother, more tender crumb.
Fine sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning on the baked surface.

The step that matters

Bake at 350°F (175°C) until done. Egg-based fillings set as proteins coagulate with heat. Too little baking leaves a runny centre, while too much makes the pudding dry and rubbery. Watch for a set centre rather than relying on time alone.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Arrowrootfits about as well
  3. Sweet potatothe original
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, brandy, nutmeg, lemon. 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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