Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Recipe for Making Fermented Yeast
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Mix the wheat flour in 2 quarts of water until it has the consistency of thick gruel.
Boil the mixture slowly for 30 minutes, then set aside to cool.
Ferment
When nearly cold, stir in 1 pound of sugar and 4 tablespoons of yeast.
Pour the contents into a large jug and place it near a warm area until it ferments.
After fermentation, pour off the liquid and discard it.
Store and use
Keep the remaining mixture in the jug, securely tightened, in a cool place for future use.
Use about 5 tablespoons for baking purposes.
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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Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,373 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Wheat + sugartop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,071 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
- Wheat flour
- Forms the thick gruel that gives the starter a body for yeast to work in.
- Yeast
- Ferments the sugars, producing gas and flavour that leaven the starter.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast so that fermentation can proceed.
The step that matters
Boil, then cool before adding yeast. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the mixture must be nearly cold before the yeast and sugar are stirred in. Adding them too hot can stop fermentation entirely.
“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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