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Baker's Yeast

A homemade yeast made by fermenting hops, potatoes, flour, and sugar in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Baker's Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the starter

  1. Boil hops in water for a few minutes, then strain and remove the hops.

  2. Add potatoes to the liquid and boil until fully cooked.

  3. Drain the liquid again and mash the potatoes with flour.

  4. Return the liquid to the mixture and add sugar, mixing until it reaches a batter-like consistency.

Ferment and use

  1. Pour into a clean glass bottle and cork tightly.

  2. Shake the bottle 2-3 times a day and keep it in a warm place for 2 days until bubbles form.

  3. After 2 days, stop shaking and secure the cork.

  4. Use the yeast the next day.

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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + sugartop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,032 recipes

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

  4. Hops + flourtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

  5. Hops + potatotop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Hops
Adds bitterness and aroma, and helps preserve the liquid during boiling.
Potatoes
Supply starch and nutrients that feed the yeast during fermentation.
Flour
Thickens the mash into a batter and gives the yeast additional starch to feed on.
Sugar
Provides quick-acting food that the yeast converts into carbon dioxide gas.

The step that matters

Shaking and warm resting for two days. Shaking mixes the yeast cells with the sugars and starches, while warmth speeds their activity. Too cold slows fermentation, and the bubbles that signal activity only form once the yeast is multiplying and releasing carbon dioxide.

Swap the potato

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

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