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Souffle Potatoes

A baked potato dish filled with a whipped potato and cream mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Souffle Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Roast the potatoes until tender.

  2. Cut out a piece of skin from the top of each potato, about the size of a shilling.

  3. Scoop out the insides and mix with butter, salt, and cream until light.

Make the filling

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form and fold into the potato mixture.

  2. Warm the mixture in a saucepan, then fill the potato skins with it.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the filled potatoes in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 10 minutes, until they rise.

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. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
Form the edible shell and body of the soufflé, holding the filling in the skins.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air that makes the filling light and lets it rise.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a smooth, tender texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the potato mixture smooth and light.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whipped whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the mixture dense, so the potatoes will not rise well in the oven.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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