Potato Yeast

Ingredients

• slice eight common-sized white potatoes
• put them in a kettle to boil, with five pints of water
• add a double-handful of hops
• a teacupful of pulverized sugar
• a smaller teacupful of salt

Method

1. 1

   Boil potatoes with hops, mash them, stir in sugar and salt, strain hop-tea over, and add risen yeast when tepid.

Nutrition per serving

Estimated from matched ingredients across 10 servings.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Virginia Cookery-book (1884) by Mary Stuart Smith, page 7. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

Potato Yeast.— Biscuit.— Thin Biscuit.— Beaten Biscuit. —Bachelor's Loaf.— Sherwood Biscuit. —French Rolls.— Cream Bolls.— Sally Lunn, Nos. 1 and 2.— Cinnamon Buns.— Hannah's BoUs.— Hannah's Muflins.— French Bread.— French Biscuit. — Lightened Biscuits.— Powhatan Loaf.— Powhatan Rolls. — Quick Biscuits.— Soda Biscuit.— Golden Loaf of Albemarle.— Brandon Rolls.— Old Maids.— Brown Bread.— Rusks, Nos. 1 and 2.— Apple Bread. — Salt-rising Bread. Yeast. Boil five or six large Irish potatoes until soft, and mash them fine; to three pints cold toater put a half -gill meas- ure of hops, closely pressed ; let the water come to a boil, and boil for five minutes, uncovered; strain gradual- ly the tea over the mashed potatoes, and after they are mixed strain through a colander to exclude the potato lumps ; add, tohile hoty a teacupf ul of sugar and a table- spoonful of salt, and, when nearly cold, a teacupf ul of old yeast. This yeast will be ready for use within four hours after being made, and will not quickly sour. In order to have vsihUeflahy bread very litHe lard must he pat in theflov/r — ^not more to each quart of flour than a piece the size of a hickory-nut. 1 2 VIRGINIA COOKERY-BOOK. Hannah's Yeast. One teacupful of salt, one of sugar (white or fair brown), two cupfuls of flour, two of meal, eight large Irish potatoes, one large handful of hops. Boil the pota- toes, after pealing them raw; strain the hot potato- water into the salt, sugar, flour, and meal ; make a quart of strong hop-tea and pour over this; put on the fire and stir until the yeast has thickened sufficiently, which will be in from five to ten minutes ; add now a teacupful of old yeast that is still lively and set away, in a jar, to rise. This yeast, if kept in a cool place, will be good as long as there is any of it left. Exact Way to Make Good Light Bread. Obeying the following directions for making yeast and sponge, the most inexperienced cook may soon become skilful as a bread-maker : Boil six potatoes ; peel and mash them up smooth, so that not the least lump is left ; mix with them a light half -pint of sifted flour ; stir these into a pint of boiling hop-tea ; strain through a coarse sieve, and add three table-spoonfuls of sugar and a teaspoonf ul of salt ; when cold pour in a half -pint of old yeast. XJse two table-spoonfuls of this yeast for lightening one quart of flour. Sponge. Two large Irish or white potatoes, three table-spoon- fuls of flour, two table-spoonfuls of sugar ; mix smooth with one pint of boiling water; when cold, add six table- spoonfuls of yeast. Make up your bread (in winter) with this sponge at 4 p.m. for an eight o'clock breakfast, using two and a half quarts of flour, two eggs well beaten — [very good bread is made by this recipe without the VIROINIA COOKERY-BOOK, eggs, however] — one table-spoonful of butter and lard, mixed. Make up the sponge before breakfast, if you want light bread for tea. It will be covered with froth when well risen. In summer, for breakfast bread, make the sponge after dinner — that is to say, three or four o'clock p.m. — and work it into your dough with ice-water just before leaving the kitchen for the night. When you leave out the eggs add their bulk in water. Although the above recipe is as precise as can well be, yet in the matter of light bread-making something, after all, must be left to the judgment of the cook, who, to insure success, must watch the changes of temperature as carefully as any maker of almanacs. If the weather is hot, the bread-dough must be set in the coolest place accessible; if the weather is cold, just the opposite treat- ment must be pursued. The dough should be left to rise in a vessel sufficiently large to allow of its swelling to four times its original size, and yet the vessel should be close- ly covered. A cook should always keep a clean, coarse linen towel at hand, wherewith to cover her bread after the lid is lifted, and while it is taking its second rise. Cooks differ as to the length of time bread ought to be worked after the yeast is put in, some only kneading it enough to make the dough smooth and pliant. But I must say that the best bread-makers whom I know knead for at least an hour, and with all their might. Even then there is a magic in the touch of certain gifted ones that all cannot hope to acquire, although every willing person can learn to make an excellent article. In the morning, if the dough is properly leavened, it will quiver on one side if touched on the other. Have ready a bread-board, which must be well floured ; flour 70ur bAD49 ^0Q Wqx^ attempting Xg Uft tbe dougb VmOINIA COOKEBT'BOOK. from its bucket or jar ; have your tins greased ; make out into loaves or rolls, as you may fancy, working the dough just enough to mould it into the forms desired. Put a little clean lard between each roll, in order that they may easily come apart; and also lightly grease over the tops, that the crust may brown well and be tender. The dough must be set to rise a second time before being put into the oven, which must be well heated, and kept evenly so all the time that the bread is baking. One hour is usually allowed for this second rising, and one hour for the baking. But here, again, it is impossible to set down invariable laws, because fires will not all burn just alike, and bread rises twice as fast on a warm morning as when the air is frosty and biting. While one cannot exaggerate the particularity required of every woman who would excel as a bread -maker, there is a comfort in reflecting that such stupid people have acquired the art that no one need despair, if she have only a willing mind. The most beautiful bread I ever saw was made by a poor creature only one degree removed from idiocy; she had sense enough, however, to fed how her bread should be treated, and was, moreover, scrupulously neat. An old "aunty" in a Virginia homestead of the olden time made such exquisitely fair rolls, that a visitor asked leave to be permitted to have her recipe. "Aunt Phyllis," the lady said, " I have come to get your recipe for making the lovely rolls you gave us for breakfast." With a droll and puzzled air the cook answered, "La! missis, I just know I darVt make 'em no different." The old woman could give no other recipe: she knew what she had to do, and did it. I am much mistaken if any one can fail who sets about bread-making wit)^ Q^^ fulness aod a deternuned purpose to suooeeclf VmaiNIA. COOKEBT-BOOK. Anothbb Good Rbcipb fob Tbast. (From Ftoqoier County.) Boil a handful of dried hops, or a two-inch cube, if you use those put up and pressed for market, in two quarts of water, and add four large potatoes, boiled, mashed, and strained ; scald six table-spoonfuls of flour in the liquid, adding one cup of sugar and one cup of salt ; when cold, add yeast to ferment it, thinning the liquid to two and a half quarts. This, put in well-corked bottles, will keep six weeks in the warmest weather. Use half a teacupf ul for each quart loaf of bread. Potato Ybast. After removing the peel, slice eight conmion - sized white potatoes and put them in a kettle to boil, with five pints of water; add a double-handful of hops, tied up in a thin muslin bag; let all boil together until the potatoes are thoroughly cooked; then take the potatoes out of the kettle with a perforated ladle, put them into a bowl, and mash them perfectly smooth; then stir into them a tea- cupful of pulverized sugar and a smaller teaoupful of salt

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.