Skip to main content
Main

Yeast

A yeast starter made by mixing mashed potatoes with water, sugar, salt, and yeast, then letting it rise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sift the mashed potatoes through a sieve.

  2. Combine the hot water, cold water, sugar, and salt in a bowl.

  3. Add the sifted potatoes and the yeast to the mixture.

Rise and store

  1. Let it rise, stirring down two or three times as it rises quickly.

  2. Store in a cool place.

  3. Use 1 teacup of this yeast for 1 quart of flour.

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.

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
Provide starch and body that feed the yeast and give the starter a thick, porous texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast so it becomes active and produces gas for rising.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars and starches, producing carbon dioxide that makes the starter rise.

The step that matters

Let it rise, stirring down two or three times. The starter rises quickly, and stirring down releases built-up carbon dioxide and redistributes the yeast and food. This keeps fermentation even and prevents the mixture from over-rising and collapsing or turning sour.

“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.

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes