Skip to main content
Main

A Cottage Loaf

A loaf of bread made with flour, yeast, sugar, salt, potato, and water.

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

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 ↓

A Cottage Loaf

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl and make a well in the center.

  2. In a small bowl, combine the yeast and sugar, and cream them together until liquid.

  3. Add the potato and tepid water to the yeast mixture, mix well, and strain into the well in the flour.

  4. Incorporate some of the flour into the mixture and set it in a warm place to rise for 30 minutes.

  5. Mix in the remaining flour, cover, and let it rise for 2 hours.

  6. Knead the dough on a floured surface for 10 minutes.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide the dough into two portions, one larger than the other, and shape them into smooth balls.

  2. Place the smaller ball on top of the larger one and press your finger into the center of the top ball.

  3. Transfer the loaf to a baking sheet and let it rise in a warm place.

  4. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 40 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + potatotop 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the gluten network that gives the loaf its structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide during rising, which leavens the dough and makes it airy.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast so it becomes active and starts fermenting quickly.
Potato
Adds moisture and starch that help keep the crumb soft and the loaf fresh.

The step that matters

Kneading and the two rises. Kneading develops the gluten so the dough can trap gas. The rises must be long enough for the yeast to inflate the dough, otherwise the loaf stays dense.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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.

You might also like

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