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Souffle of Sweet Potatoes

A baked sweet potato souffle made with mashed sweet potatoes, eggs, butter, milk, and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Souffle of Sweet Potatoes

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).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the mashed sweet potatoes and whipped eggs.

  2. Add the melted butter and milk.

  3. Season to taste.

  4. Beat the mixture until very light and fluffy.

Bake

  1. Pour into a buttered pudding dish.

  2. Bake until the top is brown.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Sweet potato + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together596 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. 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

Eggs
Whipped to trap air, giving the souffle its light, risen structure as it sets.
Mashed sweet potatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the souffle along with moisture and flavor.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the texture and carrying flavor.
Milk
Adds moisture, loosening the mixture so it bakes tender rather than dry.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture until very light and fluffy. Air whipped into the eggs is what makes a souffle rise and stay airy. Under-beating leaves a dense result, while folding in the batter too roughly deflates the air already incorporated.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Sweet potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, milk. 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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