Why it works: Tea and ginger work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 216 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Yeast Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the mash
Pour 2 quarts of water over 1 pint of dry hops and add 2 sliced potatoes.
Boil for 30 minutes, then strain the liquid over enough Indian meal to absorb all the water.
Stir well and let it cool to lukewarm.
Add 1 tea cup of good yeast or 1 soaked cake and let it rise.
Shape and dry
Once risen, mix in 1 small tea cup of brown sugar and 1 tablespoon of ginger.
Roll out the mixture to about ½ inch thick and cut into small cakes.
Place the cakes on a board to dry, turning them daily until dry enough to store in a bag.
Keep in a dry place; they will last for three months.
Use
When ready to use, soak in lukewarm water for a few minutes.
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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Tea + gingertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together216 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Potato + teatop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together136 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Potato + gingertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together992 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14,054 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Hops + gingertop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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
- Dry hops
- Provide bitterness and aroma, and their extracts help flavour the liquid used to make the mash.
- Indian meal
- Absorbs the strained liquid to form a thick, workable dough for shaping.
- Yeast
- Ferments the mixture so it rises and gives the cakes a light, leavened texture.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and feeds the yeast, supporting fermentation and flavour.
- Potatoes
- Add starch and body to the mash, contributing moisture and a softer texture.
The step that matters
Let the mixture cool to lukewarm before adding the yeast. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid, so the mash must be cooled to lukewarm before adding it. If it is too hot, the mixture will not rise properly.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (hops, tea, sugar, ginger):
- Mustardfits about as well
- Capsicumfits about as well
- Potatothe original
- Cucumberfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against hops, tea, sugar, 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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