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Dessert

Potato Caramel Cake

A sweet cake made with mashed potatoes, butter, sugar, chocolate, spices, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, walnuts, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Potato Caramel Cake

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.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the mashed potatoes, melted chocolate or cocoa, cloves, and cinnamon; mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and milk together, then add to the mixture.

  5. Sift the flour and baking powder together, then fold into the batter.

  6. Stir in the chopped walnuts and nutmeg.

Bake and frost

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake for 50-60 minutes.

  2. For the frosting, cream 2 cups of sugar with ⅓ cup butter, cool slightly, and beat onto the cake.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the cake rise and become light.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness through fat creamed with the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps it brown and keep moisture.
Boiled potatoes
Add moisture and a dense, moist crumb to the cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the flour and baking powder. Mixing flour too vigorously develops gluten, which can make the cake tough. Fold gently, just until no dry flour shows, so the batter stays tender and keeps the air trapped from creaming.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, chocolate, clove, cinnamon, egg, milk):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, chocolate, clove, cinnamon, egg, milk. 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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