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Potato Yeast

A yeast dough made from boiled, mashed potatoes, treacle or sugar, and yeast, fermented for about 24 hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Potato Yeast

Why it works: Potato and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Potato Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Boil the potatoes until soft.

  2. Peel the boiled potatoes.

  3. Weigh the peeled potatoes.

  4. Mash the hot potatoes until smooth.

  5. Mix in boiling water to achieve a beer yeast consistency.

  6. Rub the puree through a sieve.

Make the dough

  1. Add treacle or sugar for every pound of potatoes.

  2. Boil the mixture until thick like batter.

  3. Stir in the yeast while warm.

  4. Cover with a cloth.

  5. Keep in a warm place until fermentation is complete, about 24 hours.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + 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

Potatoes
Provide starch and bulk, giving the dough its body and moisture.
Treacle or brown sugar or honey
Adds sweetness and food for the yeast, plus a darker flavour.
Yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise.

The step that matters

Stir in the yeast while warm, not hot. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the mixture must be warm enough to activate it but cool enough not to destroy it. Too hot and the fermentation fails.

“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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