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Bread

Graham Bread

A loaf made with white, graham, and whole wheat flour, sweetened with sugar, leavened with yeast, and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Graham Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Scald the milk.

  2. Dissolve the butter, sugar, and salt in the hot milk.

  3. When cool, add the yeast cake, broken into pieces and dissolved in the cool liquid.

  4. Beat in the white flour.

  5. Let the dough rise until doubled in bulk.

  6. Add the remaining flour.

Shape and bake

  1. Knead on a lightly floured board for 10 minutes.

  2. Shape into loaves.

  3. Let the loaves rise until doubled in bulk.

  4. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, starting in a hot oven and then reducing to a moderate oven.

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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

White flour
Builds the gluten network that gives the loaves their structure and chew.
Graham flour
Adds coarse bran and germ, giving a denser crumb and a nutty, hearty flavor.
Whole wheat flour
Adds bran and fiber, making the crumb heavier and more absorbent than white flour.
Yeast cake
Ferments the sugars in the dough, producing gas that makes the loaves rise.
Milk
Adds moisture, softness, and browning from its milk sugars and proteins.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes flavor.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled in bulk. Yeast needs time to produce enough gas to lighten the dough. Underproofed loaves stay dense and may collapse or split in the oven, while overproofed dough loses structure.

“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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