Why it works: Potato and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓
Good Bread
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 potatoes
Boil the potatoes until done, then pour off the water and let cool.
Add the yeast cake to the cooled potato water.
Mash the potatoes very fine and pass through a sieve.
Make and rise the dough
Pour boiling milk over enough flour to make a dough and let it cool.
Add the potato mixture, salt, and sugar, stirring until stiff, adding more flour as needed.
Let the dough rise in a warm place until light.
Dissolve the baking soda in a little hot water and mix it into the dough with your hands.
Mold the dough into loaves and let them rise again.
Bake
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.
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.
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Potato + milktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Add moisture and starch, giving the bread a soft, tender crumb.
- Yeast cake
- Ferments the dough so it rises and becomes light.
- Flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast and aids browning in the crust.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with acid in the dough to release gas, adding extra lift.
The step that matters
Letting the dough rise until light. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce gas that stretches the gluten. Rising too short leaves a dense loaf, while over-rising can collapse the structure before baking.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, sugar):
- Arrowrootfits better
- Sweet potatofits better
- Beetrootfits about as well
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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