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Towanda, Pa

A yeast-leavened potato bread flavored with hops.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Towanda, Pa. Christ church. Young ladies society. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 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 ↓

Towanda, Pa

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the hops and potatoes

  1. Peel and boil six good sized potatoes, one quart of water, and one small handful of hops.

  2. Sift through a colander after steeping the hops, then add one tablespoon of salt and half a teacup of sugar, stirring together.

  3. Keep in a cool place.

  4. Add one cup of yeast.

  5. Grate six large potatoes, four quarts of water, and put two quarts on the potatoes, one cup of sugar, one of salt, and one tablespoonful of powdered alum.

Make the starter

  1. Boil a handful of hops in the remaining two quarts of water, and when cool enough, add the yeast.

  2. Use a coffee cup full of the yeast for three loaves of bread.

  3. Put one handful of hops and two quarts of boiling water on the stove.

  4. Beat together four good sized potatoes, grated raw, one cup of flour, one cup of brown sugar, and two tablespoonfuls of salt.

  5. Strain hop-water into this mixture, and cook until it is pasty.

  6. When cold, add one cup of yeast.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Place uncovered in a warm place for two days, then bottle.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

665Calories
17 gProtein
1 gFat
145 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 7 ingredients. The other 3 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
Hopnot in our table0
Puddingnot 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 Towanda, Pa. Christ church. Young ladies society. [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. 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 + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together434 recipes

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

  4. Flour + breadtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and bread barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,383 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
Starch that thickens the mixture and feeds the yeast, giving body to the liquid.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing gas that leavens the bread and gives it a yeasty aroma.
Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma, and helps preserve the liquid against spoilage.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and adds sweetness and color.
Flour
Adds bulk and starch that thickens the mixture into a paste.

The step that matters

Cook the hop-water mixture until pasty. Cooking the starchy potato and flour mixture gelatinizes the starches so it thickens properly. Adding the yeast only after the mixture is cold keeps the heat from killing the yeast cells.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, hops, flour, 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.

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