Skip to main content
Main

Dry Yeast Sponge Bread

A loaf of bread made with a dry yeast sponge and mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Dry Yeast Sponge Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sponge

  1. Dissolve dry yeast in 1 cup lukewarm water.

  2. Add mashed potatoes, sugar, and ¼ cup flour to yeast mixture.

  3. Beat the mixture for 1 minute.

  4. Cover and let the mixture sit in a warm place for 1 hour.

Make the dough

  1. Warm the remaining 3½ cups of flour.

  2. Add the warmed flour to the mixture along with the remaining 3 cups of lukewarm water, melted shortening, and salt.

  3. Knead the dough for 5 to 10 minutes until smooth.

  4. Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover, and let it rise in a warm place for 9 to 10 hours until it triples in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into loaves and place them in greased pans.

  2. Grease the tops of the loaves.

  3. Let the loaves rise again until doubled in size, then bake.

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

Dry yeast
Ferments the sugars and produces gas that makes the dough rise.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure.
Mashed potatoes
Adds moisture and starch that keep the crumb soft.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Long first rise in a warm place. Yeast activity depends on temperature, and the dough must rise until it triples. Too cold and it rises slowly; too hot and yeast may die or the dough may over-ferment and sour.

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.

You might also like

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