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Graham Bread with Straight Dough

A yeast-leavened loaf made with wheat, graham flour, lard, molasses, and salt, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Graham Bread with Straight Dough

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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Dissolve the yeast in the water.

  2. In a large bowl, mix the wheat flour and graham flour.

  3. Rub in the lard until well combined.

  4. Add the dissolved yeast, molasses, and salt to the flour mixture.

  5. Knead to form a medium dough.

Rise and shape

  1. Let the dough rise at a temperature of 65 to 70°F (18 to 21°C) until it has increased in size but not dropped.

  2. Work the dough over, then scale and shape it into a loaf.

  3. Place the loaf in a pan to prove.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 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 + wheattop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together702 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and become light.
Graham flour
Adds coarse bran and wholesome, nutty flavour and a denser crumb than white flour.
Wheat flour
Provides gluten for structure, helping the loaf hold its shape and trap gas.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and coats flour particles to limit toughness.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour, and feeds the yeast for fermentation.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise without over-proving. The dough should increase in size but not collapse. Over-proofed dough has weakened gluten and yeast exhaustion, so it can sink and bake up dense and flat.

“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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