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Dessert

Hard Tea St

A yeast‑leavened cake made from hops, wheat or rye meal, and Indian meal, dried and used as a tea.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Hard Tea St

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Boil the hops in the water until only 2 quarts remain.

  2. Strain the mixture and stir in wheat or rye meal until it thickens to a batter consistency.

  3. When the mixture is warm (about milk warm), add the yeast and let it stand for about 3 hours until very light.

Shape and dry

  1. Work in sifted Indian meal until it forms a stiff dough.

  2. Roll out the dough on a floured board and cut it into oblong cakes, about 3 inches by 2 inches and ½ inch thick.

  3. Place the cakes on a floured board, prick them with a fork, and set them in a dry, clean area with good air circulation.

  4. Turn the cakes daily; they will dry in about 2 weeks unless the weather is damp.

  5. Once fully dry, store the cakes in a coarse cotton bag in a cool, dry place.

Use the cakes

  1. To use, break 2 cakes into a pint of lukewarm water, stir in a large spoonful of flour, and let it sit in a moderately warm place overnight.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Hops + flourtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  3. Hops + wheattop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma to the liquid, balancing the sweetness of the brew.
Wheat or rye meal
Thickens the strained liquid into a batter and supplies starch for the yeast to work on.
Yeast
Ferments the batter, producing gas that makes it light and airy.
Indian meal
Stiffens the batter into a dough that can be shaped and dried into firm cakes.

The step that matters

Letting the batter rise until very light. Yeast needs warmth and time to produce enough gas to lighten the batter. Adding yeast to a mixture that is too hot can kill it, so the liquid should be only milk warm before the yeast goes in.

“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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