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Potato Yeast

A yeast dough made from mashed potatoes, water, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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

  1. Peel and boil the potatoes in 1 quart of water.

  2. Once cooked, mash the potatoes and pour the cooking water over them.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of salt and 1 cup of sugar.

  4. When the mixture is cool, add 1 cup of yeast or 1 yeast cake.

  5. Set the mixture in a warm place to rise.

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
Starch that thickens the mixture and adds moisture to the dough.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide that makes the dough rise.

The step that matters

When the mixture is cool, add the yeast. Yeast is killed by high heat, so adding it to a hot mixture can stop the rise. Letting the mixture cool first keeps the yeast alive and active.

“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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