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Dessert

Sweet Potato Pudding

A baked sweet potato custard made with butter, cream, wine, brandy, lemon, sugar, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 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

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

  2. Melt the butter and stir it into the cream, then add the mashed sweet potato.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and mix them with the wine, brandy, lemon essence, and sugar.

  4. Combine this mixture with the sweet potato mixture and stir well.

  5. Gradually fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve with hot or cold sauce.

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. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the custard, while beaten whites lighten the pudding as it bakes.
Mashed sweet potato
Provides the bulk, body and natural sweetness of the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a tender, smooth texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, helping the pudding set softly.
Brandy or whisky
Adds aroma and flavour depth to the pudding.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only while whole; overmixing or deflating them makes the pudding dense rather than light. Fold gently and gradually so the batter keeps its lift in the oven.

Swap the sweet potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, wine, brandy, lemon, sugar, 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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