Sweet Potato Custard

History

"Sweet Potato Custard" is recorded in Martha McCulloch-Williams's "Dishes & Beverages of the Old South" (1913). Two large or four medium sweet potatoes are boiled tender, peeled, freed of strings and mashed fine. Half a pound of creamed butter is mixed into the pulp, then five cups of sugar added gradually and alternately with five whole eggs. Beaten smooth, it takes the juice of three lemons, a tablespoonful of lemon essence and a scant pint of very rich milk — with less milk if the potato is already moist.

The lemon is doing real work here: three lemons' juice plus essence against five cups of sugar is what keeps a custard this rich from cloying.

The historical record does not document a specific earlier origin for this particular recipe.

McCulloch-Williams was a white writer born near Clarksville, Tennessee, who grew up on a plantation before the Civil War; the book's dedication is "to our Mammys," and much of the cooking it records is the work of enslaved and formerly enslaved Black women it does not name.

Ingredients

• 2 large or 4 medium sweet potatoes
• 1/2 pound butter
• 5 cups sugar
• 5 whole eggs
• 3 lemons, juice of
• 1 tablespoonful lemon essence
• 1 scant pint milk
• pie crust

Instructions

1. Boil tender two large or four medium sweet potatoes, peel, free of strings, and mash fine.
2. Add to the pulp half a pound of creamed butter, mix well.
3. Then add gradually five cups sugar, alternately with five whole eggs.
4. Beat smooth, add the juice of three lemons, a tablespoonful lemon essence, and a scant pint of very rich milk. Use less milk if the potatoes are very soft.
5. Beat smooth and pour into pie pans lined with good crust.
6. Bake brown in a quick oven, but do not over-bake.
7. The proportion of sugar is not excessive: sweet potatoes require more sugar for sweetening than anything save crabapples or green gooseberries.