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Bread

Minnesota Prize Bread

A potato-based bread with yeast, flour, salt, sugar, and butter or lard, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Minnesota Prize Bread

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 sponge

  1. Combine 1 quart of lukewarm water with enough flour to create a thick batter that falls in lumps from a spoon.

  2. Soak the yeast foam in 1 cup of warm water until dissolved.

  3. Add the dissolved yeast foam to the batter.

  4. Cover the bowl and let it rise overnight.

  5. Boil 2 potatoes.

  6. Mash the boiled potatoes.

  7. Mix the mashed potatoes with 3 quarts of hot water and 4 tablespoons of melted butter or lard.

  8. Stir this mixture into the sponge.

Make the dough

  1. Sift together 3 quarts of flour, 3 tablespoons of coarse sea salt, and 4 tablespoons of sugar.

  2. Mix the sifted dry ingredients into the sponge.

  3. Knead the dough for 45 minutes until smooth.

  4. Let the dough rise until light; this may take 1.5 hours in warm weather or longer in cold weather.

  5. Mix the dough thoroughly.

  6. Let the dough rise again.

Shape and bake

  1. Mold the dough into 4 loaves and place them in pans.

  2. Bake the loaves in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the loaves their structure and chew.
Yeast foam
Ferments the sponge, producing gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Potatoes
Add starch and moisture that keep the crumb soft and help the bread stay fresh.
Butter or lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a richer texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until light. Rising times vary with temperature, and the yeast needs enough time to produce gas. Underproofed dough gives dense loaves, while overproofed dough can collapse and lose structure.

Swap the potato

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

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

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