Why it works: Sugar and flour 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 ↓
Nonpareil Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the potato mixture
Thoroughly mash the potatoes.
Gradually add hot water to dissolve the potatoes completely.
Mix in sugar and salt, then let the mixture cool.
Once cooled, add the fresh yeast.
The next morning, stir well and reserve 1 cup of the mixture for the next baking.
Make and shape the dough
Pour the remaining mixture into flour (do not add water) and mix.
Knead the dough thoroughly on a floured surface.
Shape the dough and place it in tins.
Let it stand for 2 hours before baking.
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.
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Potato + sugartop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Mashed potatoes
- Add starch and moisture that give the bread a soft, moist crumb.
- Fresh yeast
- Produces carbon dioxide gas that makes the dough rise and become airy.
- Flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the dough structure and chew.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.
The step that matters
Dissolving the potatoes completely in hot water. Undissolved potato lumps stay dense and can disrupt the dough's texture. Adding the hot water gradually helps the potatoes break down evenly into a smooth mixture before cooling.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour):
- Arrowrootfits better
- Beetrootfits better
- Sweet potatofits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour. 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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