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Dessert

Sweet Potato Custard Pie

A custard pie made with mashed sweet potato, sweet milk, sugar, butter, and eggs, flavored with nutmeg or cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sweet potato and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 414 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Sweet Potato Custard Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Mix the creamed mixture with the mashed sweet potato and add the sweet milk.

  4. Flavor with nutmeg or cinnamon.

  5. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and gently stir them into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the filling into a pie pan lined with crust.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until set.

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 + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together414 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  3. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet potato
Provides the bulk, body and sweet flavor of the custard filling.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set into a firm, smooth texture when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff froth, they lighten the filling and add structure as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderize the custard while softening the filling's texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, tender mouthfeel.
Sweet milk
Adds liquid that helps form the custard and keeps the filling moist.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites beaten to a stiff froth trap air that lightens the filling. Stir them in gently so the air is not knocked out, or the pie will bake up denser and less airy.

Swap the sweet potato

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

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

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