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Yeast Without Hops

A yeast starter made from grated potatoes, boiling water, brown sugar, salt, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 30% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Yeast Without Hops

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the potatoes

  1. Grate the potatoes and add them to the boiling water.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes, then remove from heat.

Make the starter

  1. Stir in the brown sugar and salt.

  2. Allow the mixture to cool, then add the yeast.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Potato + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide starch and moisture that the yeast can feed on.
Brown sugar
Adds quick food for the yeast and gives sweetness and flavour.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars and starch, producing gas that leavens the bread it is used in.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the yeast. Yeast is a living organism. Very hot liquid can kill it, so the mixture must cool to a warm, not hot, temperature before the yeast goes in, or the starter will not ferment.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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