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Dessert

Potato-pudding

A baked pudding made from mashed potatoes, butter, sugar, eggs, lemon rind, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,230 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Potato-pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Boil the potatoes until very dry and mash them perfectly smooth while hot.

  2. Mix in the butter, sugar, eggs, salt, and grated lemon rind until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered dish.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for nearly 45 minutes.

  3. Turn out the pudding and serve with fine sugar sifted over it, or with red currant jelly or any other preserve.

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. Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Starchy base that, mashed smooth and dry, gives the pudding its body and soft crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set as it bakes, giving structure to the pudding.

The step that matters

Dry the potatoes thoroughly before mashing. Excess water in the potatoes dilutes the mixture and keeps the pudding from setting firmly. Boiling until very dry and mashing while hot helps produce a smooth, dense texture.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, 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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Sweet 116Irish 14Brandy 9Baked 7Cottage 6Lemon 5 See all 236 →

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