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Dessert

Potato Roses

A baked pastry made from mashed potatoes, eggs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Potato Roses

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Shape the roses

  1. In a bowl, mix the hot mashed potatoes with the egg yolks and beaten egg white.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a pastry bag fitted with a star-shaped tube.

  3. Pipe the potato mixture into small rose shapes on a well-buttered baking pan.

  4. Lightly brush the tops with beaten egg.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the oven until golden brown.

  2. Carefully remove with a broad-bladed knife.

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

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

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Provide the bulk and body that hold the piped rose shape.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, giving the roses a tender, creamy texture.
Egg white
Adds protein that sets when baked, helping the roses hold their shape.

The step that matters

Piping the potato mixture into rose shapes. The mashed potatoes must be hot and well seasoned so the mixture is soft enough to pipe smoothly through the star tube. Cooled potato stiffens and can clog the tube or break the rose shape.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter. 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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