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Dessert

Potato Flour Cakes

Cakes made from potato flour, wheatmeal, castor sugar, butter, lemon juice, bitter almonds, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By T. R. Allinson · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Potato Flour Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter by beating it with a wooden spoon until it is quite creamy.

  2. Add the well-beaten egg, lemon juice, castor sugar, wheatmeal, potato flour, and ground bitter almonds.

  3. Beat the mixture for 20 to 30 minutes.

Bake

  1. Drop small lumps of the batter onto floured tins.

  2. Bake the little cakes for 10 to 15 minutes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

97Calories
7 gProtein
6 gFat
5 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Almond1 almond (1.2g)7

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

By T. R. Allinson. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Potato flour (in the method)
Gives the cakes a light, tender crumb in place of some wheat flour.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets in the oven.
Butter (in the method)
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture when creamed with the sugar.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture for 20 to 30 minutes. Long beating incorporates air into the creamed butter and egg batter, which lifts the cakes as they bake. Under-beating leaves dense cakes, while the batter should stay thick enough to hold its shape when dropped.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, lemon):

  1. Milletfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Almondthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lemon. 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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