Why it works: Flour and sugar 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 ↓
Home-made Yeast
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Make the starter
Boil hops in just under 1 quart of water for 15 minutes.
Strain the hot liquid over 4 tablespoons of flour.
Stir in 1 tablespoon of old yeast and 2 mashed potatoes mixed with 2 teaspoons of sugar.
Let the mixture stand until it rises and then falls.
Make the batter
Take a small teacup of the yeast mixture and combine it with ½ pint of warm water and enough flour to make a batter.
Cover the batter with a little flour.
Let it rise until it cracks.
Add salt and more warm water.
Mix well.
Transfer to a dish.
Let it rise until it cracks again.
Lightly work it over.
Bake
Place it in pans.
Let it rise for 30 minutes.
Bake in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C).
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 + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,355 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Potato + sugartop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Hops + flourtop 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
- Provides starch and structure that the rising dough holds its shape on.
- Old yeast
- Ferments the sugars in the mixture, producing gas that makes the dough rise.
- Mashed potatoes
- Add starch and moisture, feeding the yeast and softening the crumb.
- Sugar
- Gives the yeast an easily used food source to speed fermentation.
- Hops
- Add bitter and aroma notes and help preserve the starter liquid.
The step that matters
Let the batter rise until it cracks. Rising is driven by yeast activity, and the cracked surface shows the dough has risen enough. Underproofed dough bakes dense, while overproofed dough can collapse.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (hops, flour, sugar):
- Mustardfits better
- Arrowrootfits better
- Parsnipfits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against hops, flour, sugar. 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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