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Bread

Graham Bread

A loaf made with graham flour, white flour, lard or beef fat, sugar or molasses, optional white sponge, and coarse sea salt.

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 ↓

Graham Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Mix graham flour and white flour in a bowl.

  2. Add lard or beef fat and sugar or molasses to the flour mixture.

  3. If using, incorporate the white sponge into the mixture.

  4. Mix until the dough is very soft.

Rise and bake

  1. Let the dough rise until doubled in size.

  2. Shape the dough and place it in a greased loaf pan.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for longer than white bread.

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. Flour + beeftop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beef + sugartop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Flour and beef barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 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

Graham flour
Provides the coarse bran and whole-grain body that gives this bread its hearty texture.
White flour
Adds gluten-forming protein so the dough can stretch and hold its shape while rising.
Lard or beef fat
Coats flour particles to tenderize the crumb and add richness.
Sugar or molasses
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning to the crust.

The step that matters

Bake in a slow oven for longer than white bread. Graham flour's bran and denser structure take longer to set and cook through. Baking too hot or too briefly can leave the crust over-browned while the centre stays gummy.

“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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