Skip to main content
Main

Potato Cake

A baked dish made from boiled potatoes, butter, flour, milk, and optional yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Crush the cold boiled potatoes with butter and salt.

  2. Mix in the flour and yeast (if using).

  3. Add milk and work the mixture to a very firm dough.

  4. Roll out the dough to 1½ to 2 inches thick.

Cook

  1. Cut the dough to fit your greased frying pan.

  2. Flour the dough pieces and place them in the pan.

  3. Cover with a plate and bake, shaking occasionally to prevent burning.

  4. When half done, turn the cake and cover with the plate again.

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 + milktop 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. Butter + flourtop 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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 boiled potatoes
Provide the bulk of the cake and its starchy, tender body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
All-purpose flour
Gives the dough structure so it holds together when rolled and cooked.
Milk
Adds moisture so the potato and flour bind into a workable dough.
Yeast
Produces gas for some lift and a slightly fermented flavour when used.

The step that matters

Working the dough to a very firm consistency. Too wet a dough will be sticky and break apart in the pan, while enough kneading develops the flour's gluten so the cake holds its shape while it cooks.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Arrowrootfits about as well
  3. Leekfits less well
  4. Shallotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk. 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 cake recipes

Chocolate 14Sweet 8Chocolate Walnut 3 See all 66 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes