Name: Sweet Potato Buns
Ingredients: 1 quart all-purpose flour; 1 coffee cup (about 1 cup) mashed sweet potatoes; 1 tablespoon sugar; 6 grains allspice (or 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice); 2 teaspoons butter

Why it works: Sweet potato and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 105 recipes. Both carry ethyl benzoate, which smells fruity, sweet. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Buns

Ingredients

1 quart all-purpose flour
1 coffee cup (about 1 cup) mashed sweet potatoes
1 tablespoon sugar
6 grains allspice (or 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice)
2 teaspoons butter

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.

Boil sweet potatoes until soft, then peel and mash them while hot.
In a bowl, combine the mashed sweet potatoes with flour, sugar, and allspice.
Add yeast and mix until well combined.
Allow the mixture to rise until doubled in size.
Work in the butter and shape the dough into small rolls.
Bake the rolls in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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.

Sweet potato + allspicetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together105 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).
Flour + sweet potatotop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together627 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,302 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the allspice

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

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Jalapenofits better
Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, coffee, sweet potato, sugar, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.