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Dessert

Potato Biscuits

A sweet biscuit made from mashed potatoes, eggs, sugar, and orange flower water, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Margaret Brown · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and potato work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 537 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Potato Biscuits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Peel and steam 4 good-sized potatoes.

  2. Mash the potatoes and pour them into a mortar.

  3. Moisten the mash with a little raw egg.

  4. Add loaf sugar to the mixture to make it sweet.

Mix the dough

  1. Beat the whites of 4 eggs to a snow.

  2. Mix the beaten egg whites with the potatoes.

  3. Add a tablespoonful of orange flower water.

Shape and bake

  1. Place the mixture on paper to form either round or oblong biscuits.

  2. Bake slowly until a fine color.

  3. Remove the paper when done.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

301Calories
12 gProtein
6 gFat
53 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Potato1 medium (173g) baked161
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Orange Flower1 medium (131g)62
Waternot 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 Margaret Brown. 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. Orange + potatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together537 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

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

  3. Orange + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,696 recipes

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

Orange and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,696 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
Form the bulk of the biscuit, giving a soft, moist body once mashed.
Eggs
Whipped whites add lightness and help the mixture hold its shape while baking.
Loaf sugar (in the method)
Adds sweetness to the mash and contributes to browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to a snow. Whites must be whipped to stiff, airy foam so they trap air and lighten the mash. Under-whipped or deflated whites leave dense biscuits.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Pumpkinfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, 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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