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Bread

Graham Bread

A bread made with milk, water, molasses, brewer's yeast, salt, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Graham Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Combine the milk and water in a bowl.

  2. Add the molasses, brewers' yeast, and salt.

  3. Stir in enough flour to form a stiff dough.

  4. Let the dough rise until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Mould the dough and place it in a pan.

  2. Bake until golden 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.

  1. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Milk and flour 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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the stiff dough its structure.
Brewers' yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, causing the dough to rise.
Molasses
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness, depth, and browning to the crust.
Milk
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the crumb brown.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled in size. Yeast needs enough time to produce gas for the dough to rise properly. Under-proofed dough bakes up dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse and lose structure.

“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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