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Potato Mould

A baked potato dish made with egg, cream or milk, sugar, lemon rind, and boiled potato.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Potato Mould

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.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg thoroughly.

  2. Mix the egg with boiling cream or milk, sugar, grated lemon rind, and enough cold boiled potato to form a stiff batter.

  3. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered mold.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until nicely browned, about 30 minutes or more.

  2. Turn out and serve very hot.

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

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

  2. Lemon + potatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  3. Cream + potatotop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Egg
Binds the potato and cream into a set batter that holds its shape when baked.
Cold boiled potato
Provides body and bulk so the mixture forms a stiff batter rather than a loose custard.
Boiling cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, and helps the mixture soften and blend with the potato.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until nicely browned. Baking long enough lets the egg set fully so the mould holds its shape when turned out, and browning the surface adds flavour. Underbaked centres may collapse or stay wet.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, sugar, lemon. 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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