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Yeast Cakes

A yeast-leavened cake made with hops, potatoes, flour, molasses, ginger, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and ginger work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 992 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Yeast Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the hop liquid

  1. Boil hops in water until the liquid is very strong.

  2. Add potatoes and boil until thoroughly done.

Make the starter

  1. Remove potatoes, peel, and mash them finely.

  2. Combine mashed potatoes with flour.

  3. Strain the hop liquid over the mixture, ensuring the flour is well scalded.

  4. Wait until the mixture cools enough to handle.

  5. Rub the mixture through a colander to create a fine pulp.

  6. Add enough yeast to raise the mixture.

  7. Let the mixture stand covered until morning.

Shape and dry

  1. Add more flour and mix with Indian meal until the dough is firm enough to handle.

  2. Pat the dough together and cut it into slices.

  3. Place the cakes on plates that won't impart any taste.

  4. Turn the cakes once on the first day.

  5. Turn the cakes twice daily until thoroughly dry.

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. Potato + gingertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together992 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Hops
Gives the liquid its bitter flavour and helps preserve the cakes.
Potatoes
Supply starch and body, giving the dough a soft, moist texture.
Flour
Provides starch and structure that binds the mixture into a dough.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the mixture rise and become light.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and depth, and feeds the yeast.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand covered until morning. The yeast needs time at a warm, steady temperature to ferment the starch and sugars. Too little time leaves the dough flat and dense, and it must stay covered so it does not dry out or form a crust.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (hops, flour, molasses, ginger):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against hops, flour, molasses, ginger. 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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