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Dessert

Sweet Potatoes, Candied

Candied sweet potatoes are boiled, sliced, layered with sugar and butter, then baked until caramelized.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sweet potato and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,151 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sweet Potatoes, Candied

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. Boil sweet potatoes until tender.

  2. Cut them into thin slices.

Assemble

  1. Layer the slices in a baking dish.

  2. Sprinkle each layer with granulated sugar and melted butter.

  3. Add extra bits of butter on top.

  4. Cover the dish.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until clear and rich, uncovering halfway through.

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 + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,151 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. 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
Form the bulk of the dish and soften into a tender, sliceable base.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the dish and caramelizes during baking for a rich, deep color.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the sugar melt and glaze the slices.

The step that matters

Uncovering halfway through baking. Covering keeps the slices moist and lets them cook through, while uncovering lets surface moisture evaporate so the sugar and butter can thicken and caramelize into a glaze.

Swap the sweet potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter. 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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