Skip to main content
Bread

Telegram Conservation Cook Book

Yeast-raised white bread made with a potato and yeast starter, mixed with flour and baked in loaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Chapel, Inie Gage, Mrs. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 19 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Potato and tea work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 136 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Telegram Conservation Cook Book

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Add 1 cup water to 1 pint of yeast and gradually stir in enough flour to make a batter that will just drop from a spoon.

  2. Stir well and set in a moderately warm place to rise until there are many little bubbles on top of the sponge, about 45 minutes.

Make and rise the dough

  1. Stir 1 cup water into the sponge, add salt, and enough flour to make a firm dough.

  2. Knead well for five minutes and set aside to rise in a moderately warm place.

  3. Leave the dough until it is light; it is ready when a finger punched into it is elastic and the hole starts to fill up, which takes 45 minutes to an hour.

Shape and bake

  1. Make the dough into three equal-sized loaves and let rise until nearly double the size, about 45 minutes.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven 45 minutes.

  3. Watch the bread carefully, as it works fast and will not be good if left to rise too long.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

665Calories
17 gProtein
1 gFat
145 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Potato1 medium (173g) baked161
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot 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 + teatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together136 recipes

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

  2. Potato + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together434 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Tea + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together383 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + teatop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,204 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 sponge, producing gas that makes the dough rise and become airy.
Flour (in the method)
Forms the batter and firm dough whose gluten network traps gas and sets the crumb.
Salt
Controls yeast activity and adds flavour to the dough.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise for the right length of time. Yeast keeps producing gas, and over-proofed dough loses its gluten structure and collapses, so the loaves turn out poor. Check the finger-poke test rather than relying only on the clock.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, tea, bread. 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.

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipesNut BreadNut Bread109 recipes