Why it works: Sugar and flour 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 ↓
Parisian Barm
Ingredients
Directions
Combine old barm, salt, sugar, and flour in a tub.
Keep the tub uncovered in a place where the temperature is between 60°F and 70°F.
Allow the mixture to ferment for 16 to 24 hours.
Once fermentation is complete, move the tub to a cooler place.
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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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Old barm
- Provides the wild yeast and bacteria that start the fermentation.
- Flour
- Supplies starches that the microbes break down to feed fermentation.
- Sugar
- Gives the yeast quick food, speeding up the early fermentation.
The step that matters
Keep the tub uncovered in a place where the temperature is between 60°F and 70°F.. Yeast and bacteria work within a narrow temperature range. Too cold slows fermentation, while too warm can let unwanted microbes dominate and sour the starter.
“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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