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A Method of Preparing Germ of Wheat Previous to Its Combination with Flour

A method for preparing wheat germ before mixing it with flour to make dough.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and barley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 185 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

A Method of Preparing Germ of Wheat Previous to Its Combination with Flour

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the extract

  1. Place the raw germ of wheat in a large tub or pan.

  2. Pour 12 gallons of water at 170°F over the germ and cover it for 3 hours, stirring occasionally.

  3. Strain the mixture through a jelly bag.

  4. Evaporate the strained liquid in a steam-heated pan until it weighs 10 lbs.

  5. Mix the evaporated liquid with 2 lbs of concentrated extract of barley malt and 3 pints of lime water.

Make the dough

  1. Take enough flour or fine wheaten meal to make dough with the extracts and lime water.

  2. Roll out the dough into thin sheets and allow them to dry.

  3. Finely grind the dried sheets and mix with the remaining flour or meal.

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. Wheat + barleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together185 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Barley + malttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32 recipes

    Shared aroma: decadienal (fried, fat).

  3. Wheat + limetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together96 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Barley + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together582 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw germ of wheat
Forms the bulk of the dough and supplies the flavour and nutrients that the water extracts.
Concentrated extract of barley malt
Adds sweetness and malty aroma to the dough.
Flour or fine wheaten meal
Provides structure for the dough so it can be rolled into sheets.

The step that matters

Evaporating the strained liquid. The liquid must be reduced to the stated weight so the extract is concentrated enough to bind the flour into a workable dough. Too much water left in makes the dough too wet to roll into thin sheets.

Swap the lime

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wheat, barley, malt, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Limethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, barley, malt, flour. 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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