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Dessert

Potato Cake

A sweet cake made with mashed potatoes, chocolate, almonds, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Potato Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Stir in the grated chocolate and chopped almonds.

  4. Fold in the mashed potatoes, flour, baking powder, mace, and cinnamon until just combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

  2. Bake for about 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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.

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Chocolate + almondtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Almond + potatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together337 recipes

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

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as its starches set in the oven.
Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and adds richness and tenderness.
Boiled potatoes
Add moisture and a tender, dense crumb to the cake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and stay moist.

The step that matters

Fold in the mashed potatoes, flour, baking powder, mace, and cinnamon until just combined. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense. Stopping as soon as the batter is combined keeps it tender, and the baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it is wet, so the batter should go into the pan and oven without delay.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, chocolate, almond, potato, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, chocolate, almond, potato, 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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