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Dessert

Good Potatoe Cheesecakes

A baked 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 Potatoe 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 the lemon peel and sugar together in a bowl until well combined.

  2. Add the mashed potatoes and melted butter, mixing until smooth.

  3. Stir in the currants until evenly distributed.

Fill and bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Fill pastry crusts in patty pans a little more than half full with the mixture.

  3. Sprinkle double-refined sugar on top.

  4. Bake for about 30 minutes until golden brown.

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
Provide the bulk and soft, moist body of the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, helping the filling stay tender as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Currants
Add pockets of concentrated sweetness and chew throughout the filling.

The step that matters

Fill the pastry crusts only a little more than half full. Overfilling leaves too little room for the filling to rise and set, and it can spill over and burn in the pan. Keeping the level modest lets the filling bake evenly through to a golden top.

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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