Name: Graham Bread
Ingredients: 1 cup all-purpose flour; 3 cups graham flour; 2 cups sour milk; 1 teaspoon baking powder; ½ teaspoon baking soda; ⅓ cup sugar; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Flour and milk 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

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Mix and bake

In a large bowl, mix together the all-purpose flour, graham flour, sour milk, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, and salt.
Pour the mixture into a loaf pan.
Bake for about 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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.

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).
Milk + sugartop 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

Graham flour: Provides the bulk and coarse, nutty texture of the loaf.
All-purpose flour: Adds gluten structure so the loaf holds its shape while baking.
Sour milk: Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce gas that makes the loaf rise.
Baking powder: Provides additional lift so the loaf rises evenly in the oven.

“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.