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Bread

Graham Bread

A sweet bread made with molasses, graham flour, milk, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Graham Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Warm molasses and baking soda in a pan until it foams.

  2. Add sweet milk and stir in 3 cups of graham flour and salt.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix the remaining 1 cup of graham flour with baking powder.

  4. Combine all ingredients and mix well.

Bake

  1. Pour into a baking pan and bake for 1.5 hours at 350°F (175°C).

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark color to the bread.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acid to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Graham flour
Provides the bulk structure and the coarse, nutty texture of the bread.
Baking powder
Adds extra rising power so the loaf bakes up light.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and richness to the batter.

The step that matters

Warm molasses and baking soda until it foams. Baking soda reacts with the acid in molasses to release carbon dioxide. Warming it until it foams shows the reaction is starting, so the gas can lift the batter rather than being lost before baking.

“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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