Skip to main content
Main

Light 'bread Made Erom Starter,

A loaf of bread made using a potato starter, sugar, yeast foam, water, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Light 'bread Made Erom Starter,

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.

Make the potato starter

  1. Pare and boil the potatoes until tender, then grate them.

  2. Add sugar and yeast foam soaked in just enough water to moisten it.

  3. Set aside until evening.

Build the batter and dough

  1. In the evening, mix lukewarm water with flour to create a not very stiff batter. Add 2 tablespoons of the potato starter. Beat for 10 minutes. Set aside until morning.

  2. In the morning, add 1 quart of warm water to a mixing bowl. Stir in enough flour to make the dough. Include the yeast mixture from the night before. Work the dough until smooth. Set it aside to rise.

Shape and bake

  1. Once risen, knead on a board until elastic. Shape into loaves. Fill pans about halfway. Let rise until nearly full. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  2. For the next baking, prepare potatoes and sugar as before. Mix with the remaining starter.

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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. 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
Cooked and grated, they add moisture and starch that feeds the yeast starter.
Yeast foam
Ferments the starter so the dough gains lift and a light, airy crumb.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast during fermentation and adds mild sweetness and browning.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that traps gas and gives the loaves their structure.

The step that matters

Work the dough until smooth, then knead until elastic. Kneading develops gluten so the dough can trap the gas produced by yeast. Under-kneaded dough rises poorly and bakes up dense.

Swap the potato

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

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

More potato bread recipes

Sweet 14Rolls 5Beef and Pudding 4Hop 3Hopped 3Irish 3 See all 263 →

You might also like

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