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Sweet-potato Custard Pie

A custard pie made with sweet potatoes, milk, orange, cinnamon, and topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Custard Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Parboil the sweet potatoes for 30 minutes and set aside to cool.

  2. Peel the sweet potatoes and grate them.

  3. Beat together the butter, soft sugar, and egg yolks until very light.

  4. Gradually add the grated sweet potatoes while stirring continuously.

  5. Mix in the milk, orange juice and rind, ground cinnamon, and brandy.

Line and bake

  1. Line a deep pie dish with Good Plain Paste and build up the edges with extra layers.

  2. Fill the crust with the sweet potato mixture.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

Make the meringue and finish

  1. Beat the egg whites until foamy.

  2. Gradually add powdered sugar while beating until the mixture is stiff and glossy.

  3. Heap the meringue on top of the baked pie and sift a little granulated sugar over it.

  4. Place the pie in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 2 minutes until slightly browned, watching carefully to prevent scorching.

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. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Sweet potato + orangetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together191 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, 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 potatoes
Grated into the filling to give it body and a soft, sweet, dense texture.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and set the custard, while whites whipped into meringue give lift and structure.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, tender texture.
Soft sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it beat up light with the butter.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid so the filling sets into a custard when baked.

The step that matters

Watch the final browning. The meringue browns quickly at 400°F, and sugar darkens and scorches fast at high heat, so the pie must be checked closely.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sweet potato, milk, sugar, cinnamon, butter, brandy, 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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