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Bread

Bread with Dry Yeast

A potato-based bread made with dry yeast, milk, and flour.

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

Bread with Dry Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sponge

  1. Boil and mash the potatoes.

  2. Mix the mashed potatoes with 1 cup of flour.

  3. When cool, add the dry yeast.

Make and rise the dough

  1. The next morning, add 1 quart of milk and 2 tablespoons of salt.

  2. Add enough flour to form a dough.

  3. Knead the dough well and let it rise.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape into loaves and let rise until light.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1 hour.

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.

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 + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk 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 starch and moisture that give the bread a soft, tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and holds the rise.
Dry yeast
Ferments sugars in the dough, producing gas that makes the loaves rise.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, and its sugars brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Knead the dough well and let it rise. Kneading develops gluten so the dough can trap the gas yeast produces. Under-kneading gives a dense loaf, while letting the dough rise fully before shaping gives a lighter crumb.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Parsnipfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk. 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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