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Bread Sponge
Six potatoes boiled and mashed while hot, two table-spoons of white sugar, two of butter, one quart tepid water; into this stir three cups flour; beat to a smooth batter, add six table-spoons yeast; set over night, and, in the morning, knead in sufficient flour to make a stiff, spongy dough; knead vigorously for fifteen minutes, set away to rise, and, when light, knead for ten minutes; mold out into moderate-sized loaves, and let rise until they are like delicate or light sponge-cake. -Mrs. George H. Rust, Minneapolis, Minn.
A potato-water sponge, set overnight and finished the next morning. The original assumes a crock of homemade liquid yeast and a cook who knows her own oven, so both need translating.
- The yeastSix tablespoons of the liquid or potato yeast kept in nineteenth-century kitchens is a bit over a third of a cup of active starter, weaker and slower-acting than modern commercial yeast. For an overnight sponge of this size, something on the order of 1/2 teaspoon of instant yeast is likely nearer the mark; a full packet risks running through the fermentation long before morning.
- Water temperature"Tepid" means lukewarm, roughly 85-100F. The mashed potatoes go in hot, so mix them with the water and let the whole thing come down to that range before the yeast goes in.
- Why potatoesPotato starch holds moisture and gives the yeast fermentable material, producing a soft crumb and a loaf that tends to stay fresh longer than a straight flour dough. Use a floury variety, russet or similar, and mash them free of lumps.
- Flour is deliberately unmeasuredThree cups goes into the overnight batter; the morning addition is only "sufficient," and with a quart of water plus six potatoes that means a large but unstateable amount. Add it gradually and stop when the dough is firm but still tacky at the surface.
- Kneading timesFifteen minutes by hand is right for a dough this stiff and was not an exaggeration. In a stand mixer with a dough hook it is about 8 minutes on medium-low; the second ten-minute knead after the first rise is really a thorough degassing and reshaping, and 2-3 minutes is enough.
- Judging the proof"Light as delicate sponge-cake" means fully proofed. A finger pressed into the side should leave a dent that fills back slowly and incompletely. Loaves taken well past that point may collapse when the oven heat hits them.
- The missing ovenThe recipe stops at shaping and gives no baking direction whatever. For a modern kitchen, a hot oven in the region of 400-425F for 30-40 minutes suits standard loaves; the internal temperature should reach about 200F and the bottom should sound hollow.
- YieldA quart of water and six potatoes makes a large batch: three 9x5 loaves, or four smaller ones. The dough can be halved without adjusting anything else.
Potato bread was the practical answer to unreliable yeast. Before packaged yeast was widely sold, households often kept a liquid yeast alive in a crock, usually itself made with potato water and hops, and a sponge set overnight gave that slow, variable leaven the many hours it needed. The potato did double duty: its starch fed the yeast and its moisture kept a loaf soft in kitchens with no way to wrap or refrigerate bread. Buckeye Cookery, which grew out of an Ohio compilation of the mid-1870s and was expanded through the 1880s, was assembled from contributions by women across the Midwest, and its bread-making chapter is unusually long and opinionated, running through a number of sponge methods, because bread was the one thing a household made every few days for its whole life. The attribution to Mrs. George H. Rust of Minneapolis is typical of the book's method: a named cook, her own formula, and the assumption that the reader already knows how to bake a loaf once the dough is ready.