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Marzipan Potatoes

A sweet confection made from icing sugar, crushed almonds, egg white, and cinnamon, shaped like small potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Marzipan Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the marzipan

  1. Beat the egg white until frothy.

  2. Add the icing sugar and crushed almonds, mixing well.

Shape and finish

  1. Roll the mixture into round balls.

  2. Toss the balls in ground cinnamon.

  3. Use a fork to mark the balls to resemble potatoes.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Crushed almonds
Make up the bulk of the dough, supplying fat, flavour and a firm, chewy body.
Icing sugar
Adds sweetness and a fine texture that blends smoothly with the almonds.
Egg white
Binds the almonds and sugar together so the mixture holds its shape when rolled.

The step that matters

Mixing the almonds and icing sugar with the egg white. The egg white and sugar must be evenly distributed through the almonds. If the mixture is unevenly bound, some balls will be dry and crumbly while others are sticky, and they may not hold their shape.

“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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