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Irish Potato Cake

A savory cake made from mashed potatoes, flour, and butter, baked on a griddle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and caraway match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Irish Potato Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Peel, boil, and mash the potatoes.

  2. In a mixing bowl, combine the mashed potatoes with half as much flour.

  3. Add salt and dripping, then work the mixture until smooth.

  4. Stir in the milk to form a soft dough.

  5. Dissolve baking soda in a little warm water and mix it into the dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough to about ½ inch thick and cut into irregular shapes.

  2. Bake on a well-greased griddle, turning to brown each side.

  3. Split the cakes, butter them, and stack on a hot plate.

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. Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Potato + carawaytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together115 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

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

Potatoes
Provide the bulk of the dough and a tender, moist crumb.
All-purpose flour
Adds structure so the mashed potato holds together when rolled and baked.
Dripping
Adds fat for richness and a softer texture in the dough.
Baking soda
Reacts with the dough to give lift and a lighter texture.
Milk
Moistens the dough so it forms a soft, pliable mass.

The step that matters

Dissolve baking soda in a little warm water and mix it into the dough.. Baking soda needs to be fully dissolved and evenly mixed so it releases gas uniformly. Unevenly distributed soda can leave bitter patches and uneven rising.

Swap the caraway

The recipe marks caraway as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, flour, butter, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Carawaythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, flour, butter, 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.

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