Chef 'blown away' by taste of new yeast spread

A chef has created the Forest of Dean's answer to Marmite by using leftover yeast from a company which brews mead.

Joe Parke, chef manager at Harts Barn Cookery School in Longhope, teamed up with Matt Newell, who runs Wye Valley Meadery in Caldicot, to produce the recipe.

The product still has no name but Mr Parke said he was "blown away" by the taste and he has plans to refine it.

"For me, it was more of a project to see if it could be done and, now that I know it can be done, we can take it a bit further and develop a final product with a proper name," he said.

"The guys at the meadery do an amazing job using all of their products until this very last one.

"I thought there's a chance that something good can come of it," he said.

To make the spread, Mr Parke put the yeast in the oven at 60 degrees centigrade and left it to reduce for a week.

"It was quite labour intensive and there's a really, really slow Maillard reaction and a really slow caramelisation," he said.

"Then I took it out, blended it with a nice, high-powered blender and it's gone the sort of consistency of dulce de leche - condensed milk caramel.

"We vacuum-packed it and aged it for another week in the dehydrator, just to intensify all the flavours," he explained.

Mr Newell keeps bees to produce his own honey which is fermented to make a 14.5% alcoholic mead.

He said he did not know what to expect before he first tried the product but he said he was pleased the taste of honey came through.

"It's very nice, it's smooth, it's not overly sweet and it's actually got a nice sort of tannin but there's a nice sweetness in there as well; quite dry, savoury but sweet at the same time," he said.

"It's nice to be able to taste a new thing that's come out of what we make with Joe's experience and a bit of application of some technical knowledge."

Mr Parke said he had not yet considered what to do with his creation but he felt it had potential.

"I was blown away by the sweetness and there's quite a few delicate notes in there; there's bitter, there's sweet, there's coffee, there's chocolate," he said.

"Some possible uses for me straight off the bat; coffee cake, chocolate cake, Christmas cake, possibly in a sourdough, either a sweet or a savoury, mixed through a buttercream, or turned into a miso.

"The fact that we were able to make an incredible product out of something that's effectively going to go in the bin - I love that," he added.

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