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Potato Yeast

A yeast starter made by mashing boiled potatoes, adding water, sugar, salt, and baker's yeast, then allowing it to rise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Make the potato base

  1. Boil the potatoes until soft and mash them while hot.

  2. Pour 1 pint of boiling water over the mashed potatoes.

  3. Add 1 pint of cold water and strain the mixture through a colander.

  4. Stir in the sugar and salt.

Add yeast and rise

  1. When cool, add the baker's yeast.

  2. Set the mixture in a warm place and allow it to rise several times, about 4 to 5 times, then beat it down.

Store

  1. Transfer to a glass jar, cover tightly, and store in a cool place.

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 body, and the mashed potato gives the starter its thick texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast, giving it fuel to produce gas and activity.
Baker's yeast
Ferments the sugars, producing gas that makes the mixture rise.
Salt
Controls yeast activity and adds flavor to the starter.

The step that matters

Add the yeast only when the mixture is cool. Yeast is killed by high heat, so adding it to very hot liquid can stop fermentation before the starter rises.

“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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