Name: Potato Muffins
Ingredients: one cup butter; one pint mashed potatoes; one cup yeast; one tablespoonful of sugar; four eggs; one-half cake compressed yeast

Why it works: Butter and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Potato Muffins

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Mix four eggs, one cup butter, and lard.
Add one pint mashed potatoes, one cup yeast or one-half cake compressed yeast, and one tablespoonful of sugar.
Add flour sufficient to make a stiff batter.

Rise and shape

Let the mixture rise.
Shape the dough as stiff as for a light biscuit.
Let it rise again.

Bake and serve

Form into muffins in pans or cut out and set to rise.
Bake in a quick oven.
Serve with tea.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

845Calories

24 gProtein

18 gFat

145 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Potato	1 medium (173g) baked	161
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Cake	not in our table	0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Gibson, Marietta Fauntleroy Hollyday, "Mrs. C. H. Gibson.". 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. See the original page.

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.

Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,978 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the dough and add richness and structure as they set in the oven.
Butter: Adds richness and tenderness, softening the crumb.
Mashed potatoes: Add moisture and softness to the crumb.
Yeast: Produces gas that makes the dough rise.
Sugar: Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness.
Flour (in the method): Forms gluten that gives the dough its stiff, structured body.