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Dessert

Good Potcitoe Cheesecakes

A cheesecake made with mashed potatoes, lemon peel, sugar, butter, currants, and a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,230 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Good Potcitoe Cheesecakes

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. Beat lemon peel and sugar in a marble mortar.

  2. Add mashed potatoes and melted butter, mixing well.

  3. Stir in cleaned currants.

Bake

  1. Fill pastry crust in patty pans a little more than half full.

  2. Sprinkle with double-refined sugar.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 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. Lemon + potatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Mealy potatoes
Mashed potato gives the filling body and a soft, tender set.
Butter
Melted butter adds richness and moisture to the filling.
Sugar
Sugar sweetens the filling and helps browning on the surface.
Lemon peel
Lemon peel adds aroma and a bright citrus flavour.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

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