Name: Entire Wheat Brown Bread
Ingredients: 2 cups whole wheat flour; ½ cup boiling water; 1 cup milk; ½ cup molasses; 1 cup seedless raisins; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon baking soda

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Entire Wheat Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

In a large bowl, combine the whole wheat flour, boiling water, milk, molasses, raisins, salt, and baking soda, and mix until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a loaf pan or cups.
Steam for 3 hours if using a loaf pan, or 2 hours if using cups.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,418 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,577 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Wheat + raisintop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together163 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Whole wheat flour: Provides the main structure and the hearty, nutty body of the bread.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, moisture, and the dark color typical of brown bread.
Baking soda: Reacts with the molasses and liquids to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Milk: Adds moisture and richness, softening the crumb.
Seedless raisins: Add sweetness and moist pockets throughout the loaf.

“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.