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Potato Pudding

A baked dish of mashed potatoes mixed with milk, eggs, sugar, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,052 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Wash and boil the potatoes until tender.

  2. Let the potatoes cool, then mash them.

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine the mashed potatoes with new milk, beaten eggs, moist sugar, and nutmeg, and mix well.

  2. Pour the mixture into a baking dish.

Bake

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set and lightly browned.

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. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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 starchy body that gives the pudding its soft, spoonable structure.
Eggs
Set as they heat, firming the mashed mixture into a sliceable pudding.
New milk
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the pudding creamy rather than dry.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Eggs set as they heat, so removing the pudding once it is firm but still lightly browned keeps it tender. Baking too long tightens the egg proteins further, causing a dry texture and weeping liquid.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Arrowrootfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, nutmeg. 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.

More potato pudding recipes

Sweet 116Irish 14Brandy 9Baked 7Cottage 6Lemon 5 See all 236 →

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