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Potato Bread

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

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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Boil and mash the potatoes until smooth.

  2. Combine the mashed potatoes with flour in equal portions.

  3. Dissolve yeast in warm milk and add to the mixture.

  4. Knead the dough until smooth and let it rise until doubled in size.

Bake and serve

  1. Shape the dough into loaves or rolls and place in a baking pan.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

  3. Let cool slightly before serving.

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. 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 moisture and a soft, tender crumb to the bread.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together as it rises.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, and helps the crumb stay soft.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become airy.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs time to ferment and trap gas in the gluten network. Underproofed dough bakes up dense, while the rise sets the final texture of the loaf.

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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