Name: Potato Pudding
Ingredients: ½ pound potatoes; 6 ounces sweet butter; 3 eggs; 6 ounces granulated sugar; 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg; ⅓ cup spirits

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Potato Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

Boil and peel the potatoes.
Beat the potatoes in a bowl with the sweet butter until smooth.

Make the pudding

In a separate bowl, whisk together 3 eggs and the sugar.
Combine the egg mixture with the potato mixture.
Season with cinnamon, nutmeg, and spirits.
Pour into a baking dish and bake until hot.
Serve immediately.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,052 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Potato + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,012 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes: Provide the bulk and starchy body that gives the pudding its soft, set texture.
Sweet butter: Adds richness and fat, giving the mashed potato a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Eggs: Bind the mixture and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Granulated sugar: Adds sweetness and helps tenderise the egg mixture for a smoother set.
Spirits: Contributes aroma and flavour depth to the pudding.

Swap the potato

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

Sweet potatofits better
Arrowrootfits better
Capsicumfits better
Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, spirit. 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.