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Bread

French Bread

A potato-based bread made by mashing steamed potatoes with flour, yeast, and water, then baking in a loaf shape.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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French Bread

Why it works: Potato and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,355 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

French Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the starter

  1. Wash the potatoes and steam them with skins on.

  2. Mash the steamed potatoes thoroughly with ½ pint of flour.

  3. Add ½ pint of lukewarm water and ½ ounce of salt; mix well.

  4. Let the mixture stand at about 78°F for 1 hour.

  5. Add ½ pint of yeast and let it stand in a warm place for about 9 hours until it foams and then begins to fall.

  6. Once it starts to fall, mix in 1 cup of lukewarm water and strain through a sieve.

  7. Combine the strained mixture with 2 pounds of flour and enough tepid water to form a dough.

  8. Knead the dough thoroughly and let it rise in a warm place until it cracks on top, about 1 hour.

Shape and bake

  1. In a bread pan, place 6 pounds of flour and make a hole in the center.

  2. Add warm water and the cracked dough along with 2 tablespoons of salt.

  3. Knead well, adding water as needed to form a dough.

  4. Shape the dough into loaves by dividing it into parts, rolling each part into a sausage shape.

  5. Use a small rolling pin to create a furrow in the middle of each loaf.

  6. Let the loaves rise, then bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 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 + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 feed the yeast and keep the crumb soft.
Yeast
Ferments the mixture so the dough rises and becomes airy.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough structure and chew.
Salt
Controls yeast activity and adds flavour to the dough.

The step that matters

Letting the starter ferment until it foams and begins to fall. Under-fermenting leaves too little yeast activity to raise the dough, while over-fermenting weakens its structure. Watching for the foam and the start of collapse signals the right point to continue.

“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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