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Dessert

Irish Potato Pudding

A sweet potato pudding made with mashed potatoes, cream, nutmeg, sugar, butter, and eggs, baked and topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Irish Potato Pudding

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.

Prepare

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

  2. In a large bowl, combine the mashed potatoes, cream, grated nutmeg, sugar, and butter. Mix in the eggs until well combined.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until set.

  2. Spread meringue on top and brown it under the broiler.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the pudding.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender, moist texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the custard-like base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs firm up as they heat, so underbaking leaves the pudding loose and wet, while overbaking makes it dry and rubbery. Check that the centre is just set before adding the meringue.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Sweet potatofits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, nutmeg, sugar, butter, 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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