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Dessert

Potatoe Cheesecakes

A baked dessert made from boiled potatoes, lemon peel, sugar, butter, cream, and patty pan crusts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potatoe Cheesecakes

enough for 12
Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the filling

  1. Boil the potatoes and lemon peel until tender.

  2. In a mortar, beat the lemon peel with the sugar until well combined.

  3. Add the beaten potatoes and melted butter mixed with a little cream to the lemon mixture.

  4. Mix well and let it cool.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill patty pans with the mixture, filling them slightly more than half full.

  2. Sift double refined sugar over them before baking.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  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 + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide starchy body that gives the filling a soft, thick, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing to a tender texture and flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown on top during baking.
Lemon peel
Contributes aromatic citrus oil and fragrance to the filling.

The step that matters

Fill patty pans no more than slightly over half full. The filling expands and may rise in the oven. Overfilling the pastry shells can cause the mixture to spill over and burn, while the pastry needs room to bake crisp.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, sugar, butter, cream. 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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