Why it works: Sugar and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Potato Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Mash the baked potatoes.
Separate the eggs.
Mix the sugar with the egg yolks.
Add the cinnamon and wine, then work in the fat.
Mix thoroughly and add to the mashed potatoes.
Fold in the beaten egg whites last.
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.
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Potato + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,012 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Wine + cinnamontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,170 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).
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Potato + winetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,207 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, wine, cinnamon):
- Sweet potatofits better
- Capsicumfits better
- Arrowrootfits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, wine, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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