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Graham Bread

A sweet bread made with graham flour, cornmeal, molasses, butter, and baking soda, baked at 300°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Graham Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift together the corn meal and graham flour.

  2. Pour the warm water over the sifted mixture and stir well.

  3. Add the molasses, butter, and salt.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in a little warm water and add it to the mixture.

  5. Beat well and pour into a deep pan.

Bake

  1. Bake at 300°F (150°C) for at least two hours.

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.

  1. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Corn + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together644 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Graham flour
Forms the bulk of the bread's structure and gives it a hearty, coarse texture.
Corn meal
Adds a grainy texture and body to the crumb alongside the graham flour.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark color that deepens during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to produce gas that lightens the loaf.

The step that matters

Bake long and low. Baking at a low temperature for a long time lets the thick batter set through and dries the crumb evenly. Rushing with higher heat can leave the centre gummy or the crust burnt before the interior is done.

“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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