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Dessert

Sweet Potato Custard

A custard made with mashed sweet potatoes, egg, butter, milk, sugar, nutmeg, and salt, baked in a pie crust.

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

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg and add melted butter.

  2. Mix in the mashed sweet potatoes, nutmeg, salt, sugar, and milk.

Bake

  1. Pour the filling into a prepared pie crust.

  2. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until the center is firm.

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + milktop 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

Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set into a firm, sliceable custard when baked.
Sweet potatoes
Provide the bulk, body and natural sweetness of the custard filling.
Milk
Adds liquid and richness, and its proteins help the custard set when heated.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds to its smooth, tender texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Bake until the center is firm. Egg proteins set as they heat, so the custard is done when the center is firm. Pulling it too early leaves it runny; baking too long can make it grainy or cracked.

Swap the sweet potato

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

  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 egg, butter, nutmeg, sugar, 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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