Bread Starter

I found this recipe tucked inside a cookbook that was obviously a favorite of my great-grandmother's. My great-grandmother was a newspaper clipper. Among her things were hundreds of clippings, but none are dated. This recipe, from a Nebraska newspaper, was probably from the 1930s. It is signed "N.M.M. Nance Co."

Bread "Starter"

Save the liquid from your boiled potatoes and add a pint of boiled potatoes, mashed fine. Before breakfast the next morning add enough hot water to make a half gallon. Put it in a gallon stone jar and add:

1 T. salt
2 T. sugar
one cake of yeast which has been soaked in a capful of warm water

Stir thoroughly, cover closely, and wrap up warm and tight; do not disturb until the next morning at which time beat it briskly for about five minutes. Take out a pint of this mixture to be used as a starter for the next baking instead of a cake of yeast; put it into a glass jar, set the cover on loosely and put in some cool place, as the cellar. To the remaining three pints of liquid add enough flour to make a stiff batter and as soon as it is light, mix it stiff with flour which has been warmed by stirring with the hands on the back of the stove until it is fluffy. Let dough rise to twice the original bulk and push it down; let it rise once more and mold into loaves. When light, put the loaves into an oven hot enough to brown in ten minutes; then maintain a moderate heat for fifty minutes more. When done, turn upside down on a table where it will not be in the way and leave it uncovered until it is thoroughly cold. If need be, let loaves lie all night there; then put them into your bread box which has been thoroughly scrubbed, scalded and sunned. This will make from six to eight loaves varying according to the size of loaf desired. The recipe calls for one tablespoonful of salt, but does not seem enough for me, so I add a second tablespoon of salt when I mix it stiff. When ready to make bread the second time, using the starter instead of the yeast, I save the potato water at noon with potatoes and enough hot water added to make the half gallon, and as soon as cool, add salt, sugar, and starter; leave until next morning and then make the sponge after the starter has been taken out.