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Potato Yeast Without Hops

A yeast‑leavened bread made from mashed potatoes, flour, sugar, salt, ginger, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Sterrett, Laura C · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar 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 ↓

Potato Yeast Without Hops

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Peel, boil, and mash four good-sized potatoes.

  2. Mix in four tablespoons white sugar, one teaspoon ginger, one teaspoon salt, and two cups flour.

  3. Pour a pint of boiling water over the mixture and beat until all lumps disappear.

Cool and rise

  1. Allow the mixture to cool.

  2. Add one cup good yeast to the cooled mixture and set aside to rise.

Store

  1. When risen, transfer to a glass or stone jar, cover, and set aside in a cool place.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

665Calories
17 gProtein
1 gFat
145 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Potato1 medium (173g) baked161
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
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 Sterrett, Laura C. 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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Flour + potatotop 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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the bread's shape and gas bubbles.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars and produces gas that makes the bread rise.
Potatoes
Add moisture and a soft, tender crumb.
White sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by high heat, so adding it to the hot boiled mixture would stop it from rising. Cooling first keeps the yeast alive so it can produce gas.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar. 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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