Why it works: Flour and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,355 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Home-made Yeast
Ingredients
Directions
Make the hop mixture
Boil a handful of hops in 3 pints of water for 30 minutes.
Pour half of the hot water through a sieve onto 9 tablespoons of flour and mix.
Add the remaining hot water to the mixture.
Stir in 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt and ½ cup of molasses.
When the mixture is blood warm, add 1 cup of yeast.
Make the potato alternative
For an alternative method, boil 6 peeled potatoes until soft, then pass them through a colander, moistening with some hot water.
Squeeze the bag of hops and return the pulp to the water, stirring until just boiling.
Pour this mixture over enough flour to make a thin batter.
When tepid, add ½ pint of yeast.
Store
Store in a crock with a lid in a cool 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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Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,429 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Molasses + potatotop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together197 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Flour + hopstop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10 recipes
Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
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Hops + potatotop 39% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Forms the body of the mixture and thickens it into a batter that the yeast can work in.
- Yeast
- Ferments the sugars in the mixture, producing gas that makes it rise and become active.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness and a dark flavour, and provides sugars that feed the yeast.
- Hops
- Contribute bitterness and aroma to the liquid and help keep it from spoiling quickly.
- Potatoes
- Supply starch and moisture in the alternative method, thickening the mixture into a smooth base.
The step that matters
Add the yeast at the right temperature. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the mixture must be only blood warm or tepid when the yeast goes in. Too hot and the yeast fails to activate; too cold and fermentation is slow.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, molasses, hops):
- Mustardfits better
- Arrowrootfits better
- Parsnipfits about as well
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, molasses, hops. 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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