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Potato Yeast

A yeast dough made from boiled potatoes, hops, flour, salt, brown sugar, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Potato Yeast

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 Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the mash

  1. Boil the potatoes in water with the hops until thoroughly cooked.

  2. Drain the water into a bowl containing the flour.

  3. Mash the potatoes and add them to the water.

  4. Stir in the salt and brown sugar.

Ferment and store

  1. When the mixture is somewhat cooled, add the yeast.

  2. Keep the mixture warm until it is light and spongy.

  3. Cover tightly and store in a cool place.

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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Hops + flourtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Potato + hopstop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide starch and bulk, giving the bread body and moisture.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars and makes the mixture rise and turn light and spongy.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and food for the yeast, speeding fermentation and adding flavor.
Flour
Adds starch that thickens the liquid and gives the mixture structure.
Hops
Add a bitter, aromatic flavor to the liquid.

The step that matters

Add the yeast only when the mixture has cooled. Yeast cells are killed by very hot liquid. Waiting until the mixture is only somewhat cooled protects the yeast so it can ferment and make the mixture rise.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against hops, 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.

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