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Patent Yeast

A dried biscuit dough made with hops, yeast, flour, and cornmeal that can be rehydrated and fermented.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,165 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Patent Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hop starter

  1. Boil ½ pound of fresh hops in 1 gallon of water until reduced to 2 quarts.

  2. Strain the mixture and make a thin batter with flour.

  3. Add ½ pint of good yeast and let it ferment.

Shape and dry the biscuit

  1. Pour the mixture into a bowl and work in enough corn meal to achieve biscuit dough consistency.

  2. Set the dough to rise until light.

  3. Form into small cakes and dry them in the shade, turning frequently.

Prepare the cakes

  1. To prepare the cakes, dissolve one or more cakes in a little warm water.

  2. Stir well, thicken with a little flour, and let it rise near the fire before use.

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. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 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 + corntop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh hops
Add bitterness and aroma, and help preserve the liquid used to start the dough.
Yeast
Ferments the batter so it produces gas and makes the dough rise.
Flour
Forms the thin batter and thickens the dough for structure.
Corn meal
Stiffens the mixture into dough and gives the cakes body.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until light. Rising depends on live yeast fermenting in a warm, well-fed batter. If the dough is not given enough time, or is too cold, it will stay dense and the cakes will not lighten.

“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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