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Potato Cakes

A fried dish of mashed potatoes mixed with eggs and flour, formed into cakes and cooked in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potato Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine cold mashed potatoes, beaten eggs, flour, salt, and pepper. Mix until well combined.

  2. Form the mixture into cakes.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat butter in a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Fry the cakes in the butter until golden brown on both sides. Serve warm.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Cold mashed potatoes
Provide the bulk and body that holds the cakes together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help the cakes set when cooked.
Flour
Absorbs moisture and helps the cakes hold their shape and brown.
Butter
Conducts heat in the skillet and adds fat for golden browning and flavour.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes. Cooking over medium heat lets the centre heat through while the outside browns. Too high a heat burns the butter and surface before the cakes are set inside, and too low a heat leaves them greasy and pale.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, pepper, butter, cream):

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, pepper, butter, cream. 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.

More potato cakes recipes

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