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Dessert

Potato Chocolate Torte

A chocolate torte made with boiled and riced potatoes, almonds, and bitter chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 Chocolate Torte

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.

Make the batter

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

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  4. Mix in the riced potatoes, grated almonds, grated chocolate, sifted flour, cinnamon, cloves, and baking powder.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  6. Pour the batter into two long, narrow loaf pans.

  7. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Make the icing and finish

  1. For the icing, combine 3 cups sugar, 1 cup milk, and butter the size of an egg in a saucepan.

  2. Bring to a boil, then add ¼ pound of bitter chocolate.

  3. Boil until it hardens when dropped in cold water.

  4. Remove from heat, add 1 teaspoon vanilla, and beat until thick.

  5. Pour the icing over the cooled cake.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Almond + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Potato + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together337 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whites, folded in, lighten the crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds fat and tenderness to the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light, fluffy creamed base.
Riced potatoes
Add moisture and a soft, tender texture to the crumb.
Flour
Provides structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and stays light.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten whites hold air that gives the cake its lift. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from collapsing, so the cake rises evenly and stays light.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Beetrootfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

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