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Dessert

Potato Puddings

A baked dish of mashed potatoes mixed with sugar, butter, eggs, orange juice, wine, nutmeg, currants, and baked in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,052 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, rub together the sugar and softened butter until well combined.

  2. Add the sifted potatoes, eggs, orange juice, wine, grated nutmeg, and currants to the mixture, and mix until smooth and well incorporated.

  3. Pour the mixture into a prepared pie crust.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 45 minutes or until set and golden.

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 + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Potato + orangetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together537 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  5. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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 filling, giving a soft, dense body once sifted and mixed.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during baking to give the pudding its structure.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture when creamed with the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps build a smooth base with the butter.
Currants
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until set and golden. Pulling the pie too early leaves the egg-based filling runny, because the eggs only firm up as they heat. Baking too long can dry it out and over-brown the crust, so check for a set centre and golden colour.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, sugar, butter, egg, orange, wine, nutmeg):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, sugar, butter, egg, orange, wine, nutmeg. 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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