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Potato Cheese-cakes

A baked cake made from grated lemon rind, sugar, boiled potato, clarified butter, eggs, and a light 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 ↓

Potato Cheese-cakes

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. Grate the thin rind of the lemons.

  2. Pound the lemon rind with the sugar and boiled potato until well combined.

  3. Stir in the clarified butter until smooth.

  4. Add the egg yolks and egg white, mixing well.

Bake

  1. Line tart tins with the light crust and fill them more than halfway.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 20 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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  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

Boiled potato
Adds body and moisture, giving the filling a soft, tender texture.
Clarified butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky texture in the filling.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Egg white
Adds structure and helps the filling set as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps brown the surface of the cakes.
Lemons
Rind adds bright citrus aroma and a touch of acidity.

The step that matters

Pound the potato until fully combined. Lumps of potato or unmixed sugar leave an uneven texture, so the rind, sugar and potato should be worked together until smooth before the butter and eggs go in.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Potatothe original

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