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Dessert

Yeast Cakes

Yeast cakes are a sweet, spiced potato and flour loaf made with hops, molasses, ginger, salt, yeast, and cornmeal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 strong.

  2. Add potatoes and boil until thoroughly done.

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

  4. Mix mashed potatoes with flour and strain in the hop liquid.

  5. Add molasses, ginger, and salt; let cool.

Make the starter

  1. Rub the mixture through a colander to reduce it to a fine pulp.

  2. Add enough coarse sea salt and yeast to raise the mixture.

  3. Let it stand in a large covered jar until it rises.

Shape and dry

  1. Add more flour and mix with cornmeal until firm enough to handle.

  2. Cut into slices and place on plates to dry.

  3. Turn the cakes once on the first day, then 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, aromatic flavour and helps preserve the mixture.
Potatoes
Supply starch and body, giving the mixture a thick, pulpy texture.
Flour
Adds starch and structure so the mixture can be shaped into firm cakes.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour, and feeds the yeast.
Yeast
Ferments the mixture so it rises, leavening the cakes.

The step that matters

Let the mixture rise fully before shaping. Yeast needs time and warmth to ferment the mixture; if it has not risen enough, the cakes stay dense and do not develop their light, open texture.

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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