Skip to main content
Main

Bee Ad, with Dey Yeast

A yeast‑leavened potato bread loaf made with flour, milk, salt, and potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Bee Ad, with Dey Yeast

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.

Make the starter

  1. Pare and boil the potatoes until soft.

  2. Drain and mash the potatoes.

  3. Mix in 1 teacup of flour, rubbing out any lumps.

  4. If the mixture is too hot, add a little cold water.

  5. Soak the dry yeast in ¼ cup of tepid water.

  6. Add the soaked yeast to the potato mixture and mix well.

  7. Let the mixture stand overnight.

Make the dough

  1. Stir in 1 quart of milk and 2 tablespoons of coarse sea salt.

  2. Add enough flour to form a dough.

  3. Knead the dough well.

  4. Let the dough rise until light.

Bake

  1. Shape the dough into loaves.

  2. Bake the loaves for 1 hour at 400°F (200°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. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Their starch and moisture give the bread a soft, moist crumb.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure.
Dry yeast
Ferments sugars in the dough, producing gas that makes the loaves rise.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the crumb and aiding browning.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until light. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce gas; underproofed dough stays dense, while overproofed dough collapses and loses structure.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, 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.

More potato bread recipes

Sweet 14Rolls 5Beef and Pudding 4Hop 3Hopped 3Irish 3 See all 263 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes