Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Bread Made with Dry Yeast
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash them.
Strain the hot potato water over 1 pint of flour and let it cool slightly.
Soak the dry yeast in ½ cup of warm water for 15 minutes, then add it to the flour mixture.
Stir in more flour as needed to achieve a dough consistency.
Set the dough in a warm place to rise until light and fluffy.
Mix in ½ pint of this yeast mixture with 5 to 6 quarts of flour and 1 tablespoon of salt.
Knead the dough well, adding warm water or bran if necessary.
Let the dough rise again in a warm, buttered pan until doubled in size.
Shape into loaves and place in greased pans to rise a second time before baking.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter):
- Shallotfits better
- Leekfits better
- Arrowrootfits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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