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Dessert

Potato Flour Cakes

A sweet cake made from potato flour, butter, powdered sugar, egg, cream, and currants or raisins, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potato Flour 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter until smooth.

  2. Add the potato flour to the butter.

  3. Add the powdered sugar to the mixture and mix well.

  4. Beat the egg with the cream.

  5. Add the egg and cream mixture to the batter.

  6. Fold in the currants or raisins.

  7. Mix until the batter is light and fluffy.

Bake and serve

  1. Spoon the mixture into small tins.

  2. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes until golden.

  3. Serve hot or cold, but best when fresh.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb to the cakes.
Potato flour
Provides the base structure of the cakes, with a light, delicate texture.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps it cream smoothly with the butter.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets in the oven.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the cakes tender.

The step that matters

Mix until the batter is light and fluffy. Creaming butter and sugar traps air that gives the cakes lift. Under-mixing leaves them dense, while the batter should be beaten only until smooth and airy.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, potato, flour, sugar, egg, cream. 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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