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Potato Cake

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Potato Cake

Ingredients

Directions

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

  2. Add the mashed potatoes and chocolate, mixing well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the beaten eggs, milk, and vanilla extract.

  4. Stir the egg mixture into the potato mixture.

  5. Fold in the raisins, walnuts, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

  6. Sift the flour and baking powder together, then gradually add to the mixture.

  7. Mix until just combined, being careful not to overmix.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, chocolate, egg, milk, vanilla, raisin. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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