Name: Potato Doughnuts
Ingredients: 2 eggs; 2 tablespoons melted butter; 1 cup mashed potato; 4 teaspoons baking powder; 1 cup sweet milk; ½ teaspoon ginger; 1 cup sugar; Flour to mix soft

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 Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Beat the egg whites and yolks separately, then combine them.
Pass the mashed potatoes through a ricer.
Add the milk and riced potatoes together, then pass through the ricer again.
Mix in the sugar, eggs, ginger, and flour with the baking powder.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,611 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Potato + gingertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together992 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 ginger

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

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Capersfits better
Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, potato, milk, sugar, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.