Why it works: Flour and sugar 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 ↓
Potato Bread
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Make the sponge
Pass the boiled potatoes through a colander.
Mix the boiled potatoes with 2½ quarts of lukewarm water and ½ cup of lukewarm water containing dissolved yeast.
Add enough flour to achieve the thickness of sponge cake and beat for 10 minutes.
Let the mixture rise in a warm place overnight.
Make the dough
In the morning, add salt and sugar, then enough low-grade flour to make a stiff dough.
Knead the dough on a floured surface for 30 minutes.
Place the dough in a warm area to rise without covering it.
Once risen, shape into loaves without kneading.
Bake
Place the loaves in pans and run a fork through them several times.
Bake in a hot oven at 400 °F (200 °C) for 45 minutes, then change the position of the pans and bake for an additional 15 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.
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.
-
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
-
Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
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 the dough hold water and stay soft.
- Yeast
- Produces carbon dioxide during fermentation, causing the dough to rise.
- Flour
- Forms gluten and the structure that holds the risen loaves.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning in the crust.
The step that matters
Letting the sponge rise overnight. The yeast needs time in a warm place to ferment the starch and sugars in the sponge. Too cool or too short a rise leaves the dough dense and under-risen.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar):
- Arrowrootfits better
- Beetrootfits better
- Sweet potatofits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar. 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.
More potato bread recipes
You might also like
Cornbread345 recipes
Bread Pudding336 recipes
Milk Bread Rolls242 recipes
Nut Bread109 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.