Home-Baked Bread From Potato Water Starter

By Miriam Bunce
Published on November 1, 1973
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Home-baked bread made from your own potato water and yeast starter is more satisfying than commercially-baked bread.
Home-baked bread made from your own potato water and yeast starter is more satisfying than commercially-baked bread.
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Cinnamon rolls are baking option after you've mixed and kneaded your dough.
Cinnamon rolls are baking option after you've mixed and kneaded your dough.

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.

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