Name: Boston Brown Bread
Ingredients: 1 pint hot water; 1 cup molasses; ½ cake of yeast; ½ cup lukewarm water; 2 cups whole wheat flour; ½ teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon baking soda

Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Scald the cornmeal with the hot water.
Mix in the whole wheat flour, molasses, and salt.
Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water and add to the mixture.
Dissolve the baking soda in the lukewarm water and add to the batter.
Pour the batter into greased molds, filling each a little over half.
Let the molds rise until nearly full.
Place the molds in a pot of rapidly boiling water, ensuring the water comes up two-thirds of the mold's height.
Boil for three hours, adding more boiling water as needed.
Remove from water and bake for half an hour.

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.

Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,429 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Molasses + wheattop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together702 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).