Name: Principal Milwaukee Cooking School
Ingredients: four saltspoonfuls make one teaspoonful; one-half ounce bottle extract makes 12 teaspoonfuls; three teaspoonfuls make one table spoonful; eight tablespoonfuls of dry; two gills make 1 cup; one cup contains eight ounces of liquid; one tablespoonful butter makes one ounce; one tablespoonful granulated sugar makes one ounce; one tablespoonful flour makes one-half ounce; two tablespoonfuls ground spice make one ounce; one quart sifted pastry flour makes one pound; one quart less one gill; one pint butter makes one pound; one pint chopped meat; one cup rice makes one-half pound; one cup cornmeal makes six ounces; one cup stemmed raisins makes six ounces; one cup cleaned currants makes six ounces; one cup stale bread crumbs makes two ounces; one quart of flour requires one pint of butter; one quart of flour requires one heaping tablespoonful of butter; one quart of flour requires two tablespoonful s of butter; one quart of flour requires one cup of butter; one quart of flour requires one-half level teaspoonful of salt; one quart of flour requires three teaspoonfuls of star crystal baking powder; one quart of flour requires one pint of milk; one quart of flour requires one scant quart of milk; one teaspoonful of soda to one pint of sour milk; one teaspoonful of soda to one cup of molasses; one teaspoonful of salt to one pound of meat

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 ↓

Principal Milwaukee Cooking School

Ingredients

Directions

Make the first dough

Sift seven pounds of flour in a deep pan.
Make a hole in the center of the flour.
Pour into the hole one quart of warm water in which one cake of good yeast has been dissolved.
Beat the mixture well with a large spoon, cover with flour, and set to rise in a warm place for two hours.
Dissolve a handful of salt in about three pints of warm water.
Make the whole into a soft dough with the salted water.

Knead and shape

Knead well with your hands and set to rise for two or three hours.
Work the dough and make it into loaves.
Set the loaves to rise again about two hours.

Bake

Bake in a good hot oven.

Water Bread No. 2

For Water Bread No. 2: measure flour, sugar and salt into a six-quart mixing bowl.
Pour hot water enough to dissolve the shortening onto the shortening, then add cold water to make one pint of water at the right temperature (about 80 degrees).
Mix in the dissolved yeast and make a batter with the flour, beating well.
Add more flour until the mixture is stiff enough to handle on the moulding board.
Knead hard and long, not less than twenty minutes, using as little flour as possible.
Cover closely with cloth and tin cover and let rise until it doubles its bulk.
Cut it down and let rise again.
Divide into four parts and shape into round loaves, two in each pan, or shape part as biscuit.
Cover and let rise to double its bulk.
Bake in a hot oven about forty-five minutes.
Take from the pans as soon as done and wrap in a thick cloth.
Lay on a rack to cool and turn the baking pans over them to secure a thin papery crust.
Do not put loaves away until entirely cold.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

1345Calories

40 gProtein

35 gFat

210 gCarbs

Counts 12 of 16 ingredients. The other 4 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 12 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Rice	1 cup cooked (158g) white	206
Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Sour Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Grape	1/2 cup (76g)	62
Molasses	1 tbsp (20g)	58
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Wine	2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)	25
Nutmeg	1 tsp ground (2.2g)	12
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Pastry	not in our table	0
Meat	not in our table	0
Water	not in our table	0
Cake	not in our table	0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Clarke, Mary Lamson. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Rice + raisintop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together565 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour: Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chewy crumb.
Yeast: Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes the loaves rise.
Water: Hydrates the flour so gluten can form and dissolves the yeast.
Sugar: Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning.
Shortening (in the method): Adds fat that softens the crumb and tenderizes the texture.

The step that matters

Kneading the dough long enough. Kneading develops gluten so the dough traps the gas from the yeast; too little kneading or too much extra flour gives a dense, coarse loaf.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, meat, rice, raisin, bread):

Figfits better
Vanillafits better
Coconutfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, meat, rice, raisin, bread. 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.

Cornbread345 recipes

Bread Pudding336 recipes

Nut Bread109 recipes

Wheat Bread65 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Principal Milwaukee Cooking School