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Bread

White Breads

Three prize-winning bread recipes using yeast, potato, or salt-rising starters, with directions for the first two.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Chapel, Inie Gage, Mrs. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 29 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 938 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

White Breads

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potato sponge

  1. In the evening, soak 2 Magic yeast cakes in 4 tablespoonfuls of water.

  2. Boil 4 large potatoes and mash them fine.

  3. Use the potato water and enough other water to make 2 quarts.

  4. Put the potatoes, water, 1 tablespoonful of salt, 2 tablespoonfuls of shortening and 2 tablespoonfuls of sugar all together.

  5. Stir in 2 quarts of flour and let it set overnight.

Make and shape the dough

  1. In the morning, mix in enough flour to make a firm, smooth dough that will not stick to the board, about 9½ quarts of flour altogether.

  2. Set in a warm place and let rise 1½ hours.

  3. Punch down and let rise again until three times its size.

  4. Knead lightly and mold into loaves.

  5. Let rise until a little more than double in size, then bake.

Make the corn meal and milk sponge

  1. On the evening before baking, scald two heaping tablespoonfuls of corn meal with half a cup of hot milk, making a thin batter.

  2. Add more corn meal (not scalded) to make it as thick as mush.

  3. Cover closely and keep in a warm place overnight.

  4. In the morning, put one cup of milk in a one-gallon stone jar or large pitcher.

  5. Add one teaspoonful of sugar and one teaspoonful of salt.

  6. Scald this with three cups of water heated to the boiling point.

  7. Reduce to a temperature of 108 degrees with cold water, about two cups, using a thermometer.

  8. Add flour and mix to a good batter, then add the light corn meal.

  9. Beat well, cover the jar, and put it in a large kettle of water at a temperature of 108 degrees until the sponge rises, two or three hours.

  10. The sponge should rise at least 1½ inches.

Shape and bake

  1. Add flour to make a stiff dough, make into loaves, and put in pans to rise, greasing them well on top.

  2. When quite light, bake about one hour.

  3. Do not let warmth get out of the dough while working it.

  4. If less bread is wanted, cool the scalded milk by setting it in a pan of cold water, using only the four cups of liquid and about three cups of flour to a loaf.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1108Calories
28 gProtein
35 gFat
174 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 10 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Potato1 medium (173g) baked161
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Lard1 tbsp (12.8g)115
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Corn1/2 cup kernels (82g)77
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Cakenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Chapel, Inie Gage, Mrs. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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 + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together938 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

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

  3. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Builds the gluten structure that traps gas and gives the loaf its crumb.
Yeast
Ferments sugars to produce carbon dioxide, which makes the dough rise.
Potatoes
Hold moisture and make the crumb soft and slightly moist.
Corn meal
Adds moisture and a coarser, tender texture to the crumb.
Milk
Softens the crumb and adds richness and gentle browning.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb by coating flour strands.

The step that matters

Hold the sponge at 108 degrees. Yeast works fastest at moderate warmth; much hotter temperatures kill it, and cooler slows the rise. Checking with a thermometer keeps fermentation steady until the sponge rises at least 1½ inches.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, milk, bread, corn. 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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