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Dessert

Potato Pudding

A sweet pudding made from boiled potatoes, sugar, butter, eggs, mace, lemon, milk, bread, currants, suet, brandy, cream, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potato Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Gather one pound potatoes, one pound loaf sugar, half pound fresh butter, the yolks of eight eggs, and the whites of four eggs.

  2. Add one teaspoonful of beaten mace, or the rind of one lemon and half the juice. Add citron if you like it.

  3. Boil the potatoes dry; squeeze them in a coarse cloth and put them in a marble mortar.

Make the pudding

  1. When milk-warm, add the butter, well washed, and beat.

  2. Beat them until perfectly light, then add them to the eggs and sugar beaten very light, then strain them through a hair sieve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1119Calories
33 gProtein
32 gFat
177 gCarbs

Counts 10 of 12 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 10 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Potato1 medium (173g) baked161
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0
Brandynot in our table0

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.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Mace + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,791 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the main body of the pudding and give it a soft, thick texture.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help the pudding set when baked.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth crumb.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and helps the eggs and butter beat up light.

The step that matters

Beating the potato mixture until perfectly light. Beating incorporates air into the mixture, which gives a light texture. Straining through a fine sieve removes lumps, so the pudding stays smooth.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, sugar, butter, milk, bread, currant, egg. 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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