Name: Raisin Loaf
Ingredients: 6 pounds flour; 2.5 pounds raisins; ½ ounce caraway seeds; a few coriander seeds, ground; a little cinnamon or clove pepper; ½ pint barm (or yeast) mixed with cold water; butter (for rubbing into flour); sugar (to taste)

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Raisin Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, raisins, caraway seeds, ground coriander, cinnamon or clove pepper.
Mix the barm with cold water and add to the dry ingredients. Cut the mixture with a knife to incorporate the ingredients well.
For a richer loaf, rub butter into the flour and sugar before mixing.
Shape the dough and bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until the top is a fine brown.

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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Coriander + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,635 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Caraway + coriandertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together185 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).
Caraway + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together188 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour: Forms the gluten network that gives the bread its structure.
Barm or yeast: Ferments the dough so it rises and becomes light and airy.
Raisins: Add sweetness and moisture, leaving soft pockets of fruit throughout the loaf.
Butter: Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a richer loaf.

Swap the coriander

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, raisin, caraway, cinnamon, butter, sugar):

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Clovefits better
Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, raisin, caraway, cinnamon, butter, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.