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 ↓
Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sponge
Boil and mash the potatoes.
Add salt, lard, and boiling water to the mashed potatoes.
When the mixture is lukewarm, add the dissolved yeast and enough flour to make a sponge.
Let the sponge rise overnight.
Make and rise the dough
In the morning, add sugar and more flour to make a soft dough.
Turn the dough onto a well-floured board and knead lightly for 20 minutes.
Place the dough in a greased bowl and grease the top to prevent a hard crust.
Cover the bowl and let the dough rise until it doubles in size.
Shape and bake
Knead and shape the dough into loaves or rolls.
Let the loaves rise in the pan for 30 to 45 minutes and bake for 40 to 60 minutes.
Let the rolls rise in the pan for 1 to 1.5 hours and bake for 20 minutes.
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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Sugar + flourtop 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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Potato + sugartop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Starch and moisture that help make the bread soft and tender.
- Yeast
- Produces gas as it ferments, causing the dough to rise.
- Flour
- Forms gluten, giving the dough structure to hold its rise.
- Lard
- Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.
The step that matters
Greasing the top of the dough before its rise. Without a coat of fat, the exposed surface dries out during rising and can form a hard, tough crust. Greasing keeps the surface pliable so the loaf rises and bakes evenly.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour):
- Arrowrootfits better
- Beetrootfits better
- Sweet potatofits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour. 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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