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Dessert

Potato Puffs

A baked puff made from milk, butter, lemon zest, sugar, boiled potatoes, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Puffs

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. Combine milk, butter, lemon zest, and sugar in a clean saucepan.

  2. Heat gently until butter is melted.

  3. Gradually add boiled potatoes.

  4. Beat mixture until light and smooth.

  5. Stir in beaten egg yolks.

  6. Whisk egg whites to a firm froth.

  7. Fold egg whites into mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Grease small patty pans with butter.

  2. Fill pans with mixture.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes.

  4. Sift powdered sugar over the puffs.

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

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

  2. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to a firm froth, they trap air that lifts and lightens the puffs as they bake.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help set the custard-like structure of the puffs.
Boiled potatoes
Dry, floury potato adds body and a tender, light crumb to the mixture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites. Whisked whites hold the air that makes the puffs rise. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring or deflating the batter leaves dense, flat puffs.

Swap the potato

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

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

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