Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
The Buckeye. Yeast.
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the potatoes and hops
Pare and boil the potatoes until broken.
Boil the hops in 1 quart of water.
Drain the hop water and mash the potatoes.
Add the hop water and enough hot water to make 2 quarts.
Strain and rub all the potato through.
Make the mixture
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Add the flour mixed with cold water to a smooth paste and the sugar.
Boil for 5 minutes, stirring well.
Let the mixture cool.
Ferment and store
Add the yeast.
When well risen, mix in the salt.
Store in a covered jar in a cool cellar.
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.
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Potato + sugartop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
-
Hops + flourtop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10 recipes
Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
-
Potato + hopstop 39% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Potatoes
- Provide starch and bulk that give the dough body and moisture.
- Hops
- Add bitterness and aroma, and help preserve the liquid.
- Flour
- Thickens the mixture into a paste that adds body and structure.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness.
- Yeast
- Ferments the mixture so it rises and becomes leavened.
The step that matters
Let the mixture cool before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the mixture must be cool enough that it does not destroy the yeast before fermentation can begin.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (hops, flour, sugar):
- Mustardfits better
- Arrowrootfits better
- Parsnipfits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against hops, flour, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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