Name: Graham Bread
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon lard; 1 tablespoon molasses; 4 small tablespoons coarse sea salt; graham flour

Why it works: Molasses and flour 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 ↓

Graham Bread

Ingredients

1 tablespoon lard
1 tablespoon molasses
4 small tablespoons coarse sea salt
graham flour

Directions

Prepare the sponge

Set a sponge at night as you would for white bread.

Make the dough

In the morning, add lard, molasses, and salt to the dough.
Use graham flour to mix it up.
Finish the bread as you would with white bread.

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.

Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked 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 coarse, bran-rich body that gives graham bread its texture and nutty flavour.
Lard: Adds fat, which softens the crumb and gives a tender texture.
Molasses: Adds sweetness and a deep flavour, and helps the crust brown.

“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.