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Bread with Potatoes
To one quart of blood-warm water or milk (if milk is used, it must first be scalded and then cooled to blood heat), take two quarts sifted flour and one teacup fresh potato yeast. Put the milk or water into a one-gallon stone crock and stir the flour gradually into it, then add the yeast, beating it vigorously for fifteen minutes; set to rise in a warm place, putting the crock in a pan (to catch the drippings if it should run over). If in winter, mix it as early as six or seven o'clock in the evening. Cover very closely with a clean white cloth, with a blanket over it, kept purposely for this (the cloths used for bread should not be taken for any thing else). In the morning, sift three quarts of flour into the bread-pan, setting it in the oven for a few minutes to bring it to the same temperature as the sponge. Pare six medium-sized potatoes, and boil them in three pints of water; when thoroughly cooked, remove the potatoes and pour the boiling hot water (which will now be about one quart) over the flour, stirring it with a spoon. Mash the potatoes very fine, and beat them as if for the table; mix them in the flour, and when cooled to blood heat, pour in the sponge, and mix well. Add more wetting or flour if needed, rub off all that adheres to the sides of the pan, and mix with the dough, kneading it from forty-five minutes to one hour; then place the pan to rise, cover closely with the cloth and blanket, setting it where there is no draft (this is imperative). When it has risen to twice its size, knead down in the pan, take one quart of dough for each loaf, knead each five minutes with quick, elastic movements, grease the sides of the loaves with sweet, melted butter if two or more are placed in the same pan; or the loaves may be greased all over lightly before placing in. the pan, a process which adds much to the sweetness of the crust. The pan should be thoroughly but lightly greased. Let rise until as large again as when molded, then bake. Have your oven moderately heated at first, with a fire in the stove that will keep it of a uniform temperature. (For manner of testing oven, see general instructions for bread-making.) Bake from three-quarters of an hour to one hour and a quarter, according to the size of the loaves, during which time the bread should be carefully watched to see that the proper degree of heat is steadily kept up. Before browning they will have risen to double their size when placed in the oven. The heat of the oven is all important, for if too hot the loaves will not rise sufficiently; if too cold they will rise too much, and the bread will be coarse and porous. When done, place on side, and cool without covering. Never use flour without sifting, as sifting enlivens and ærates the flour, and makes both mixing and rising easier and quicker. Quick rising makes whiter bread, and it is very necessary that in all its different risings, bread should be mixed as soon as ready. - Huldan, Sheboygan, Me.
A two-stage overnight bread: a loose sponge raised with homemade potato yeast, then a full dough enriched with mashed potato and its own cooking water. The quantities are household-scale — roughly five quarts of flour, or about five pounds, giving four to five loaves.
- Potato yeastThe teacup of "fresh potato yeast" (a teacup is variously reckoned at 4 to 6 oz) is a homemade liquid starter, often made up afresh and sometimes started with a little of the previous batch; it would have carried wild yeast and probably lactic bacteria too. Substitute a cup of active sourdough starter for something closer to the original flavour, or 1 teaspoon of instant yeast slaked in a little of the warm liquid for a faster, blander loaf.
- Blood heatBlood heat means about 98F — warm to the wrist, not hot. Milk was routinely scalded; the usual modern explanation is that enzymes and whey proteins in raw milk slacken dough, and with pasteurised milk the step is generally thought less necessary.
- The hinge: potato water on the flourPouring a full quart of boiling potato water over three quarts of flour partly gelatinises the starch, which is what gives this bread its moist crumb and long keeping. Do it in the order given, and let the mixture cool to blood heat before the sponge goes in or the yeast will be killed.
- Kneading timeForty-five minutes to an hour was realistic for a large, slack, hand-mixed dough in a wooden pan. Ten to twelve minutes by hand on a bench, or six to eight minutes on low in a stand mixer, reaches the same gluten development; judge by the dough turning smooth and passing a windowpane test.
- Oven temperatureThe book gives no figures, referring instead to its general instructions for testing the oven; a "moderately heated" bread oven of this period is usually reckoned at somewhere around 350-375F. Loaves of about a quart of dough will probably want 40 to 50 minutes in a modern oven rather than the full hour and a quarter.
- Testing donenessThe book relies on watching colour. An instant-read thermometer in the centre should show 200-210F; the bottom crust should sound hollow when tapped.
- Overnight timingSetting the sponge at six or seven in the evening suits a cool room, around 60-65F. In a modern heated kitchen the sponge will be ripe in four to five hours, so set it later or use the refrigerator for the overnight rest.
- Vessels and clothsThe one-gallon stone crock is a 4-quart bowl; the pan beneath it catches overflow. The insistence on cloths kept only for bread was presumably about keeping soap, grease and other smells out of the dough — a clean towel and a folded blanket still hold warmth as well as anything.
- Cooling"Place on side" means laying the loaves on their flanks on a rack so the crust does not steam soft. Leave them uncovered until completely cold before cutting.
Potato bread of this kind was common in nineteenth-century American households, and for practical reasons: before packaged yeast was reliable, cooks kept a liquid starter alive in a jar, and potato water was one medium among several — hop yeast was at least as common — with its starch often said to encourage a vigorous, sweet-smelling ferment. Mashed potato in the dough itself stretched expensive wheat flour, held moisture so the loaf stayed edible for several days, and is generally credited with producing a finer crumb. The Dixie Cook-Book (1883) belongs to the same family of compiled, contributor-signed community cookbooks as the Buckeye series, which is why this recipe carries a name and a town — "Huldan, Sheboygan" — rather than an author's voice; the printed "Me." sits oddly beside a town of that name in Wisconsin. The long instructions on draughts, uniform fire and testing the oven are a reminder that the hardest part of baking on a wood range was not the dough but the heat.