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Dessert

Potato Pudding

A sweet pudding made from boiled potatoes, sponge cake, eggs, sugar, spices, and wine, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Potato Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Peel and boil the potatoes.

  2. Mash the potatoes through a colander while hot.

  3. Mix in the butter and beat until light.

Make the pudding

  1. Beat the eggs and add them to the potatoes along with the sugar and flavorings.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a pudding dish, with or without a pastry edge.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 30 minutes in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Potato + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Rose + macetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together498 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

Potatoes
Form the bulk of the pudding and give it a soft, moist body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a smoother, softer texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning on the surface.
Stale sponge cakes
Add body and absorb the liquids, adding structure to the pudding.

The step that matters

Mash the potatoes through a colander while hot. Potatoes that cool before mashing become stiff and gluey, and lumps resist blending. Hot potatoes mash smoothly and combine evenly with the butter and eggs.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, egg, sugar, rose, brandy, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, egg, sugar, rose, brandy, cinnamon. 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.

More potato pudding recipes

Sweet 116Irish 14Brandy 9Baked 7Cottage 6Lemon 5 See all 236 →

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