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 ↓
An Excellent Yeast
Ingredients
Directions
Make the starter
Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash or sift them finely.
Add the sugar and coarse sea salt to the mashed potatoes.
Pour in the boiling water and then add the cold water.
Stir in the old yeast, cover the mixture, and let it rise overnight.
Use the starter
Use ½ cup of this yeast for every 3 pints of flour.
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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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
- Potatoes
- Provide starch and body that feed the yeast and thicken the starter.
- Sugar
- Gives the yeast a readily available food source to ferment.
- Old yeast
- Supplies live microorganisms that ferment the mixture and make it rise.
The step that matters
Let it rise overnight. The yeast needs time and warmth to multiply and ferment the starch and sugar; a short rise leaves the starter weak and under-active.
“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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