Why it works: Rye and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,320 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Yeast Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Make a thick batter with the yeast, salt, and enough rye or wheat flour.
Let the batter rise.
Stir in Indian meal until it reaches a rollable consistency.
Roll out the dough very thin.
Cut into cakes using a tumbler.
Dry and store
Dry the cakes in the shade on a clear, windy day, avoiding direct sunlight to prevent fermentation.
Store the cakes in a bag in a cool, dry place.
Make the starter
Dissolve one cake in a little lukewarm milk or water. Stir in 2 tablespoons of flour.
Set the mixture near the fire until light.
Use this mixture to raise four or five loaves of bread.
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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Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,320 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Rye + milktop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together918 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Yeast
- Ferments the batter, producing gas so the dough rises and becomes light.
- Rye or wheat flour
- Forms the batter's structure and gives the dough body once it is rolled.
- Indian meal
- Stiffens the risen dough so it can be rolled out and cut into cakes.
The step that matters
Dry the cakes in the shade. Direct sunlight can warm the cakes enough to start fermentation, which spoils them before storage. Drying in shade on a clear, windy day keeps them dry without that early activity.
“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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