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Yeast for Cakes of Leaven

A yeast mixture made by boiling hops and potatoes, then mixing with flour and yeast to produce leavening cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Yeast for Cakes of Leaven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the starter

  1. Boil a large handful of hops in 3 quarts of water with 3 unpeeled Irish potatoes until reduced to 1½ quarts.

  2. Strain the mixture, which is boiling hot, over ½ gallon of sifted flour and stir well.

  3. When cool, add ½ pint of yeast or 1 yeast cake.

  4. Place the mixture in a bucket to rise.

Dry and store

  1. Once very light and porous, form small thin cakes with cornmeal.

  2. Place the cakes on a board to dry, turning them daily.

  3. After drying completely, store in a thin bag in a cool, airy place.

Use the yeast

  1. In summer, use 1 cake for every quart of flour for bread, rolls, or buckwheat cakes.

  2. Dissolve the cake in a teacup of cold water and add 1 teaspoon of sugar.

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).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the base of the starter that the yeast feeds on and rises within.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the starter rise and gives the baked goods their lightness.
Irish potatoes
Supply starch and nutrients that help the yeast grow in the starter.
Hops (in the method)
Add bitterness and aroma, and help preserve the starter against spoilage.

The step that matters

Cooling before adding yeast. Yeast is killed by high heat, so the strained mixture must be cool before the yeast is stirred in. Adding it while still hot can stop the culture from rising.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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