Name: White Bread
Ingredients: 2 Magic yeast cakes; 4 large potatoes; 1 tablespoon salt; 2 tablespoons shortening; 2 tablespoons sugar; 9½ quarts flour

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 ↓

White Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Soak 2 Magic yeast cakes in 4 tablespoons of water overnight.
Boil and mash 4 large potatoes, then combine with enough water to make 2 quarts, including the potato water.
Add 1 tablespoon salt, 2 tablespoons shortening, and 2 tablespoons sugar to the potato mixture.
Stir in 2 quarts of flour and let it sit overnight.
In the morning, mix in enough flour to form a firm, smooth dough that doesn't stick to the board, about 9½ quarts total.
Set the dough in a warm place and let it rise for 1½ hours.
Punch down the dough and let it rise again until it triples in size.
Knead lightly, mold into loaves, and let rise until slightly more than double in size before baking.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,355 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Potato + sugartop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).