Name: Cheap Fruit Bread
Ingredients: 25 pounds bread dough; 12 ounces lard; 12 ounces sugar; 3 pounds raisins

Why it works: Sugar and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cheap Fruit Bread

Ingredients

25 pounds bread dough
12 ounces lard
12 ounces sugar
3 pounds raisins

Directions

Work the lard, sugar, and raisins into the bread dough until well combined.
Shape the dough into loaves.
For variations, substitute currants or sultanas, and add eggs or egg color, chopped peel, or coconut.

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.

Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Bread + raisintop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,111 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Bread + sugartop 32% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,638 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).