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Dessert

Potato Souffle

A baked potato soufflé made with boiled potatoes, egg yolks, sugar, vanilla or lemon essence, and folded egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Potato Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender.

  2. Pass the potatoes through a sieve.

  3. Mix in the beaten egg yolks and sugar.

  4. Add the essence of vanilla or lemon.

Fold and bake

  1. Whip the egg whites into a stiff froth and fold into the mixture.

  2. Pour into a buttered and breadcrumbed mold.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until set and lightly browned.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Potato + vanillatop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together383 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Provide starch and body, giving the soufflé a light, substantial texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the base, contributing to a smooth, tender crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff froth, they trap air and make the soufflé rise and set.
Lump sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the eggs and potatoes.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be whipped to a stiff froth and folded in gently. Overmixing knocks out the trapped air, so the soufflé rises less and turns dense.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, vanilla. 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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