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Peach-leaf Yeast

A yeast mixture made from peach leaves, potatoes, hops, malt, and flour used to bake rolls or loaf bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and tea work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 42 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Peach-leaf Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the potato and peach-leaf starter

  1. Boil the peach leaves and potatoes in 2 quarts of water until the potatoes are done.

  2. Remove the leaves and discard them.

  3. Peel and mash the potatoes.

  4. Mix the mashed potatoes with 1 pint of flour and enough water to form a paste.

  5. Pour the hot peach-leaf tea over the mixture. Scald for 5 minutes.

  6. Add ½ cup of old yeast. Let it sit for a few hours.

Make the hop and malt mixture

  1. Boil ½ ounce of hops in 4 quarts of water for 10 minutes.

  2. In a bucket, combine 1 pound of flour and ½ pint of malt. Pour 1 quart of the hop tea over the flour and malt to make a thin paste.

  3. Strain the remaining 3 quarts of hop tea over the mixture. Let it cool until milk warm.

  4. Stir in 1 pint of old yeast. Allow it to stand until it rises and falls.

Use the yeast

  1. Use ½ pint of this mixture for every quart of flour to make rolls or loaf bread.

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. Peach + teatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  2. Potato + teatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together136 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Peach + potatotop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together71 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Potato + malttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,355 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

Flour
Forms the bulk of the dough and its starch structure, setting the body of the rolls or loaf.
Old yeast
Produces gas that makes the mixture rise and gives the bread its lift and flavour.
Potatoes
Add starch and moisture, helping the dough stay soft and hold water.
Malt
Supplies sugars that feed the yeast and add sweetness and colour to the mixture.
Hops
Add bitterness and aroma, and help preserve the liquid.

The step that matters

Let it cool until milk warm. Liquid that is too hot kills yeast, while liquid that is too cool slows fermentation. Milk warm keeps the yeast active before it is stirred in.

Swap the peach

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, flour, hops, tea, malt):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Grapefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, flour, hops, tea, malt. 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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