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Dessert

Potato Fried Cakes

A sweet fried cake made from mashed potatoes, sugar, eggs, and flour, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,052 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Fried Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Mash the potatoes and run them through a sieve to remove lumps.

  2. Combine mashed potatoes, unbeaten eggs, and sugar in a bowl.

  3. Whip with a wire egg beater until light and creamy.

  4. Sift flour, baking powder, nutmeg, and salt.

  5. Add to the creamed mixture alternately with the sweet cream, mixing thoroughly.

Shape and fry

  1. Turn mixture onto a floured board.

  2. Roll to about ¼ inch thick.

  3. Cut into shapes.

  4. Fry in deep fat 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. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Mashed potatoes
Add moisture and body, giving the cakes a tender, soft crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they are whipped into the creamed mixture.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the dough so the cakes hold their shape when fried.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, helping the cakes rise and turn light in the hot fat.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fried surface brown to a golden color.
Sweet cream
Adds fat and moisture, making the dough richer and more tender.

The step that matters

Frying in deep fat until golden brown. Fat that is too cool lets the cakes soak up oil and turn greasy, while fat that is too hot browns the outside before the centre cooks. Holding a steady, moderate heat lets the inside set and the surface brown evenly.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Potatothe original

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