Home-Baked Bread From Potato Water Starter

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Home-baked bread made from your own potato water and yeast starter is more satisfying than commercially-baked bread. MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF

In the "good old days" on the farm, all the bread was made at home for two reasons: First, it was cheaper (it still is...the cost today is about 10¢ per loaf) and second, rural folks couldn't go to the store every few days for a fresh supply. Today many people would add a third motive for doing their own baking: Commercial bread tends to become monotonous, and the homemade loaf is considered a special treat. 

If you're a home baker yourself, you may want to try a simple, economical leavening made from potato water. Once you've established the starter you can maintain it indefinitely without further addition of yeast, and it's available whenever the whim strikes you to get up to your elbows in dough. 

Here are the nine steps farm housewives use to make home-baked bread by this old-fashioned method.

[1] To establish the starter, save the water from boiled potatoes...or better, cook a potato and mash it in its own liquid. Pour the water into the container you plan to use permanently (a quart jar is good).

Next, dissolve a package of dry yeast in a quarter of a cup of warm water and pour the solution into the potato liquid. Add two tablespoons of sugar and fill the jar with warm water, leaving an inch or more of empty space at the top. (Remember that warmth causes the yeast to work rapidly, but too high a temperature will kill the organisms.) Stir the mixture.

[2] Let the starter stand for about eight hours.

[3] Just before bedtime, mix your sponge: Pour the starter into a deep pan or pail, leaving a little (a layer about 1 1/2" deep) in the bottom of your quart jar. Add two cups of water to the mixture in the pan and stir in flour to form a thin batter about the right consistency for pancakes. Cover the sponge and let it stand all night.

Before you put away the starter that remains in the quart jar, add a tablespoon of salt (as preservative) and two tablespoons of sugar (as food for the yeast). Keep the container in a cupboard, not in the refrigerator.

[4] It's a good idea to mix your bread early in the morning so that it'll have plenty of time to rise during the day.

Four loaves of bread require two and a half pounds of flour. Some types make better bread than others...each farm wife experimented until she found a brand that worked well for her. Whatever kind you use, buy it when you find it on sale to keep costs to a minimum.