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Potato Cakes

A baked or fried dish made from mashed potatoes, butter, salt, baking powder, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Potato Cakes

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.

Make the dough

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash them finely.

  2. Mix in the butter, salt, and baking powder with the mashed potatoes.

  3. Sift in the flour and combine until well mixed.

  4. Roll out the mixture into round cakes.

Bake

  1. Bake the cakes on a pan in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

Shape and griddle

  1. Form one large cake, half an inch thick.

  2. Cut the cake into wedges.

  3. Grease a hot griddle with a little butter.

  4. Cook the wedges, turning frequently until brown.

Serve

  1. Cut open the cakes.

  2. Spread a little butter inside.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy bulk that gives the cakes their soft, tender body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and moisture, and helps the cakes brown in the pan.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, making the cakes rise and turn lighter.
All-purpose flour
Adds starch and gluten that bind the mixture so the cakes hold their shape.

The step that matters

Cook the wedges on a hot, lightly greased griddle. Medium-high heat browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, giving flavour and colour. If the griddle is too cool, the cakes steam and stay pale; if too hot, the outside burns before the centre heats through. Turning often spreads the heat evenly.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour. 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.

More potato cakes recipes

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