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Dessert

Fried Cakes

Fried cakes made from mashed potatoes, eggs, sour milk, and spices, then fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Fried Cakes

Why it works: Potato and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,052 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Fried Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine mashed potatoes, eggs, sour milk, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, sugar, and shortening.

  2. Mix until well combined, then add enough flour to form a soft dough.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to about ½ inch thick.

  2. Cut into desired shapes and fry in hot lard until golden brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Mashed potatoes
Adds moisture and body, keeping the cakes tender and soft inside.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure so the cakes hold their shape.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cakes rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lightens the dough.
Baking powder
Provides additional lift so the cakes puff while frying.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the cakes absorb excess fat and turn greasy and dense. Oil that is too hot browns the outside before the centre cooks through.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, nutmeg, sugar, flour):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, nutmeg, sugar, 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.

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