Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. 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.
Make the batter
In a large bowl, combine warm water, brown sugar or molasses, and hop yeast.
Thicken the mixture with unbleached flour to create a thin batter.
Stir in salt and more flour until the mixture is quite stiff.
In the morning, add baking soda and enough flour to make the batter very stiff.
Shape and bake
Transfer the batter into pans and let it rise again.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C), starting at a lower temperature.
Keep the dough warm while it rises and smooth the tops of the loaves with a spoon or knife dipped in water.
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.
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Unbolted flour
- Builds the structure of the loaf as its proteins form gluten when mixed with water.
- Hop yeast
- Ferments sugars in the batter, producing gas that makes the dough rise.
- Brown sugar or molasses
- Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness, moisture, and a darker color to the crumb and crust.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with acidic molasses to release gas, helping the loaf lift and stay open.
- Warm water
- Hydrates the flour so gluten can develop and wakes the yeast.
The step that matters
Adding the baking soda in the morning. Baking soda starts releasing gas as soon as it meets an acid such as molasses, so its lift is strongest when the batter is stiff and shaped soon after. Once it has released its gas, the rising power is spent, so the loaves may fall or stay dense if it is added too early or the dough is left too long.
“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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