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Potato Souffle

A baked potato soufflé made with butter, eggs, sugar, almonds, grated potatoes, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and potato work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 337 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Potato Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the mixture

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl until soft and creamy, making a slight crackling noise.

  2. Stir in the egg yolks, sugar, and ground almonds.

  3. Beat the mixture for 10 minutes.

  4. Fold in the grated potatoes and breadcrumbs.

  5. Gently fold in the egg whites whipped to a stiff froth.

Bake

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

  2. Bake in a moderately hot oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

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. Almond + potatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together337 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  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

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air that lifts the soufflé, while yolks add richness and set in the bake.
Butter
Creaming with butter adds fat that makes the mixture tender and rich.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the butter cream to a light, smooth texture.
Ground almonds
Add nutty flavour and a moist, fine texture to the batter.
Potatoes
Add moisture and body, keeping the soufflé soft inside.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and add structure so the mixture holds together.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. The whipped whites hold the air that makes the soufflé rise. Folding gently keeps that air in, while stirring or beating again would deflate the mixture and leave it dense.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, almond. 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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