Skip to main content
Bread

Yeast From Mashed Potatoes

A fermented mixture of mashed potatoes, boiling water, sugar, salt, and hops used as yeast for bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Yeast From Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the starter

  1. Pour the boiling potato water over the hops and cover.

  2. Allow to steep for 5 minutes.

  3. Strain the water from the hops and combine it with the potato mixture.

  4. Mix the sugar and mashed potatoes into the mixture.

Ferment

  1. Cover and place in a warm area where the temperature remains between 70°F and 90°F (21°C to 32°C).

  2. After 2-3 days, the mixture should ferment and show bubbles, indicating it is ready to use in bread.

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 + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Potato + hopstop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Sugar + hopstop 43% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Hops
Provides bitterness and aroma, and contributes wild yeast activity that helps the starter ferment.
Mashed potatoes
Supplies starch and moisture that feed the fermentation.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast so the mixture ferments and produces bubbles.

The step that matters

Keeping the mixture warm while it ferments. Yeast activity slows in cold conditions and can be stalled or spoiled by excessive heat. Holding the temperature within the stated range keeps fermentation steady, so bubbles form within the expected 2-3 days.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Cucumberfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, hops. 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 yeast recipes

Starter 58Bread 21Dough 14 See all 56 →

You might also like

Potato BreadPotato Bread124 recipesCornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipes