Skip to main content
Bread

Another Simple Yeast

A simple yeast starter made by mixing flour, water, salt, sugar, and yeast, then letting it rise.

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

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 ↓

Another Simple Yeast

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the starter

  1. Stir the flour into the lukewarm water.

  2. Add the salt and brown sugar, then mix well.

  3. Stir in the yeast until fully combined.

Rise and store

  1. Cover and let it rise until well risen.

  2. Once risen, store in a cool place.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Lukewarm water
Hydrates the flour and wakes the yeast so fermentation can begin.
All-purpose flour
Supplies the starch that the yeast ferments, giving the starter its body.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars and gives off gas, which makes the starter rise.
Brown sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and a molasses flavour.

The step that matters

Cover and let it rise until well risen. Covering keeps the surface from drying out and traps the gas the yeast produces. The rise shows the yeast is active, so the starter should not be stored before it has fully risen.

“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.

More yeast starter recipes

Potato 58Homemade 13Hop 9That Will Not Sour 4Bread 3 See all 138 →

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes