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Dessert

Potato Torte

A sweet potato torte made with eggs, sugar, spices, almonds, and citron, baked into a cake.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Potato Torte

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 the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender.

  2. Squeeze the boiled potatoes through a ricer onto a napkin to cool.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, stir the egg yolks and powdered sugar together until well combined.

  2. Add the cloves, allspice, chopped almonds, cinnamon, and citron to the yolk mixture.

  3. Gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites last.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a springform pan and bake for 45 minutes in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Allspice + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whites beaten stiff trap air, giving the torte lift, while yolks add richness and binding.
Potatoes
Riced cooked potato adds moisture and a tender, light crumb.
Almonds
Chopped nuts add body, fat and a toasty flavour to the batter.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily into the yolks, adding sweetness and helping set a fine texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites hold the air that lifts the torte. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam and produces a dense cake, so fold gently and add them last.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, clove, sugar, allspice, almond, cinnamon. 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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