Why it works: Hops and flour work together. They rank in the top 32% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10 recipes. Both carry eugenol, which smells clove, spicy. The science ↓
Dry Yeast
Ingredients
Directions
Make the starter
Boil the hops in water for 20 minutes.
Scald the flour with the hop water and let it cool to warm milk temperature.
Add the sweet yeast and let it stand for 12 hours, stirring twice during fermentation.
Shape and dry
Thicken the mixture with cornmeal until it is stiff enough to form cakes.
Let it stand for another 12 hours.
Shape into cakes and place in a shaded area to dry, turning frequently to prevent freezing.
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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Hops + flourtop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10 recipes
Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Hops
- Adds bitterness and aroma that flavour the liquid before fermentation.
- Flour
- Scalded flour thickens the hop water and gives the mixture body and food for the yeast.
- Sweet yeast
- Ferments the mixture, producing gas and flavour that leaven the dough.
- Cornmeal
- Stiffens the mixture so it holds its shape as cakes.
The step that matters
Turning the cakes while they dry. Turning them frequently keeps the cakes from freezing or sitting damp in one spot. Dry, even cakes store well and keep the yeast from spoiling or growing mould before use.
“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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