Why it works: Flour and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,429 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Gramam Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Mix 3 pints of Graham flour with 1 cup of molasses.
Rinse the molasses cup with 1 quart of warm water and gradually add it to the flour, beating well.
Stir in 1 small cup of good yeast until well combined.
In winter, place the mixture in a warm spot to rise; in summer, this is not necessary.
Add 2 teaspoons of salt and stir in enough Graham flour until a spoon can stand upright in the mixture.
Rise and bake
Pour the batter into pans and let it rise in a warm place, but do not let it rise too much.
Preheat the oven to a steady temperature to avoid burning the crust.
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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Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,429 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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 structure of the bread, with a coarse, wholesome texture.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the batter.
- Yeast
- Produces gas that makes the batter rise and gives the bread its airy crumb.
The step that matters
Do not let the batter over-rise in the pans. Yeast dough that rises too long exhausts its food supply and weakens the gluten structure, so the loaf can collapse or turn coarse 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.
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