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Potato Puddings

A sweet baked pudding made from boiled potatoes, sugar, butter, eggs, orange juice, wine, nutmeg, and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, rub the sugar and softened butter until creamy.

Make the filling

  1. Add the sifted potatoes, eggs, orange juice, wine, grated nutmeg, and currants; mix well.

  2. Pour the mixture into a prepared crust.

Bake

  1. Bake until set and golden brown.

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 starchy bulk that gives the pudding a soft, tender body.
Eggs
Set the mixture as they cook, giving structure and a custard-like firmness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing to a tender texture and flavor.
Sugar
Creams with the butter and adds sweetness and browning during baking.
Currants
Add concentrated fruity sweetness and chewy bites throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Bake until set and golden brown. Eggs set as their proteins coagulate with heat, so underbaking leaves a loose, wet center, while overbaking makes the pudding dry and rubbery.

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.

More potato pudding recipes

Sweet 116Irish 14Brandy 9Baked 7Cottage 6Lemon 5 See all 236 →

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