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 ↓
Potato Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sponge
Boil and mash the potatoes very finely.
Add 3 pints of boiling water and stir in flour until you have a stiff batter.
When the mixture is lukewarm, add the yeast and set it in a warm place.
Make the dough
The next morning, add salt and knead in flour until very stiff.
Set the dough in a warm place to rise.
Knead once more, adding very little flour.
Let it rise again, then place in pans, filling them halfway.
Bake
When risen to the top of the pans, bake until golden brown.
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.
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Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Provide starch and moisture that give the bread a soft, moist crumb.
- Flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and stretch.
- Yeast
- Ferments the sugars in the batter, producing gas that makes the dough rise.
- Coarse sea salt
- Controls yeast activity and adds flavour to the dough.
The step that matters
Knead in flour until very stiff, then let rise fully before panning. The dough must be stiff enough to hold its shape, and the rise must finish before baking. Too much added flour makes the bread dense, while underproofed dough bakes up heavy and tight.
“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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