Name: Patent or Unleavened Bread
Ingredients: 20 pounds Hungarian flour; 8 ounces cream of tartar; 5 ounces baking soda; 1 pound lard; 1 pound sugar; 6 ounces coarse sea salt; churned milk (as needed)

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Patent or Unleavened Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

Combine flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, lard, sugar, and coarse sea salt in a large bowl.
Add churned milk until a nice-sized dough forms.
Divide dough into 1½-pound portions.
Grease each loaf all around.

Bake

Place four loaves in a 13‑inch diameter, 7‑inch deep pan with a fitting lid.
Bake until the loaves are nice and showy, forming three‑cornered shapes.

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Flour and milk 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

Hungarian flour: Forms the main structure of the dough as it binds with the liquid.
Cream of tartar: Acidic component that reacts with baking soda to produce rising gas.
Baking soda: Releases carbon dioxide with the acid, lifting the loaves as they bake.
Lard: Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and keeps the loaves moist.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during 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.