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Bread

Overnight Straight-dough Method

A simple bread made by overnight rising of a straight dough.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Overnight Straight-dough Method

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. If using dry yeast, soak it in part of the lukewarm liquid for 20 minutes.

  2. Mix the lukewarm liquid, yeast, salt, mashed potato, sugar, and enough flour to form a dough.

  3. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic.

  4. Cover the dough and let it rise overnight in a warm place (60°F to 75°F) until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Once risen, mold the dough and place it in a greased pan.

  2. Allow it to rise again until just double in volume.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about one 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning.
Mashed potato
Adds moisture and softness to the crumb.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb.

The step that matters

Overnight rise. The dough must rise slowly and fully in a warm place until doubled. Too cool and the yeast works too slowly; too warm or too long and the gluten weakens and the dough collapses or sours.

Swap the potato

The recipe marks potato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour. 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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