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Dessert

Potato Pudding

A baked potato custard with butter, sugar, lemon, milk, and optional eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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 and mash the potatoes.

  2. Stir in the butter while the potatoes are warm.

  3. Add the sugar, lemon rind, and lemon juice.

  4. Mix in the milk until smooth.

  5. If desired, add 2 beaten eggs before baking.

  6. Transfer the mixture to a buttered tin.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the starchy bulk that gives the pudding its soft, mashed body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a smoother, more tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the mash into a spoonable batter.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the pudding structure and a firmer texture.

The step that matters

Stir in the butter while the potatoes are warm. Warm potatoes absorb fat more readily, so the butter blends in evenly and the mash stays smooth rather than greasy or lumpy.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Asparagusfits about as well
  2. Sweet potatofits about as well
  3. Potatothe original
  4. Leekfits about as well

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