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Bread

Potato Bread

A yeast‑leavened loaf made with mashed potatoes, milk, salt, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Potato Bread

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 ↓

Potato Bread

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 dough

  1. Finely mash the potatoes until smooth.

  2. Add salt and 1 cup of milk, then beat until light and white.

  3. Dissolve the yeast cake in the second cup of milk and add it to the mixture.

  4. Gradually sift in the flour.

  5. Let the dough rise until light, then punch it down and let it rise again.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into 2 loaves and let them rise again.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) 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.

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

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

  2. Milk + flourtop 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).

Milk and flour 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

Mashed potatoes
Adds moisture and a soft, tender crumb to the bread.
Flour
Forms the gluten structure that holds the loaves up as they rise.
Yeast cake
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Milk
Hydrates the dough and adds richness and softness to the crumb.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until light. Yeast needs time to produce gas and stretch the gluten; rising too short leaves a dense loaf, while the second rise after punching down gives the bread its final lightness.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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