Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Potato Cream Cake
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.
Prepare the base
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Roll out a bottom for the cake from plain cake dough and press it up the sides of a cake pan.
Let the dough prove while you prepare the potato cream.
Make the potato cream
Separate the eggs.
Beat the yolks with the sugar until combined.
Gradually add the yolk mixture to the grated potatoes.
Sift in the flour and mix well.
Add the melted butter and mix again.
Beat the egg whites until stiff.
Fold the egg whites into the potato mixture.
Bake and serve
Spread the potato cream evenly over the cake base, about 1 inch thick.
Bake in the preheated oven until golden.
Dust with powdered sugar and cinnamon before serving.
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Potato + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,012 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lighten the potato cream and help it rise.
- Potatoes
- Grated potatoes supply the moist, dense body of the cream filling.
- Butter
- Melted butter adds richness, moisture and flavour to the potato cream.
- Flour
- Flour gives the potato cream structure so it holds its shape when baked.
- Sugar
- Sugar sweetens the filling and helps the top brown as it bakes.
- Cream or milk
- Cream or milk adds moisture and softness to the potato mixture.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only when beaten stiff; overmixing or stirring them in vigorously deflates the foam, so the cream bakes up denser and less light. Fold gently and keep the mixture airy.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, cream, sugar, egg, cinnamon):
- Sweet potatofits better
- Arrowrootfits better
- Chivefits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, cream, sugar, egg, cinnamon. 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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