Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Potato Cakes
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
Boil the potatoes until tender.
Mash the potatoes with butter and milk until smooth and moist.
Shape and bake
Shape the mashed potatoes into balls using a floured cup.
Place the balls on a greased baking sheet and flatten them.
Brush the tops with milk and sprinkle with bread crumbs.
Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until hot and lightly browned.
Carefully lift with a spatula and serve hot.
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.
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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Potato + milktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 bulk that holds the cakes together after mashing.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, softening the mash and helping the surface brown.
- Milk
- Adds moisture to keep the mash smooth and soft, and helps the tops brown.
- Flour
- Dusts the cup so the mash releases cleanly and does not stick during shaping.
- Bread crumbs
- Form a crisp, browned topping on the outside of the cakes.
The step that matters
Mash until smooth and moist. Potatoes must be mashed smooth with enough butter and milk so the mixture holds its shape. Dry or lumpy mash crumbles when shaped and bakes unevenly.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, flour, bread):
- Potatothe original
- Leekfits about as well
- Shallotfits about as well
- Arrowrootfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, flour, bread. 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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