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Potato Custard

A baked custard made from mashed potatoes, sugar, eggs, milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Potato Custard

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).

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, combine the mashed potatoes, sugar, eggs, milk, and butter.

  2. Beat the mixture well until smooth.

Bake and serve

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

  2. Serve with sauce of your choice.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the bulk and body that gives the custard its soft, spoonable structure.
Eggs
Coagulate as they bake, setting the mixture into a firm, sliceable custard.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid that keeps the custard tender rather than dry.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the texture and mouthfeel of the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning on the surface of the baked custard.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins set with heat, so the custard firms as it bakes. Overbaking tightens them too far, making the custard grainy, curdled, and watery.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Sweet potatofits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, butter. 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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