Name: Wheaten Bread
Ingredients: 1 spoonful hop yeast; 2 potatoes, boiled; 1 pint water; 3 tablespoons sugar; flour, enough to form a dough

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 ↓

Wheaten Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the potatoes until soft, then mash them.
In a bowl, combine the mashed potatoes with water and hop yeast to make a sponge.
Let the sponge rise until light and frothy, about 10-12 hours or overnight.
Add sugar and enough flour to form a dough.
Knead the dough until firm, then let it rise for 30-45 minutes.
Divide the dough into pans and let it rise again 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.

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).