Name: Graham Bread
Ingredients: 44 cupfuls warm water; 1 tablespoon brown sugar; 3 packets Fleischmann’s Yeast; 12 teaspoons salt; Graham flour (enough to make a thick batter); 1 teaspoon baking soda

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 ↓

Graham Bread

Ingredients

44 cupfuls warm water
1 tablespoon brown sugar
3 packets Fleischmann’s Yeast
12 teaspoons salt
Graham flour (enough to make a thick batter)
1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

Combine warm water, brown sugar, and yeast in a bowl.
Thicken the mixture with graham flour to form a thin batter.
Stir in salt and more flour until the batter is thick.
In the morning, add baking soda and enough flour to make the batter thick enough to stir with a spoon.

Rise and bake

Place the batter in pans to rise again.
Keep the dough warm while it rises and smooth the top with a wet cloth.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Warm water: Dissolves the yeast and sugar and hydrates the flour to form the batter.
Fleischmann's yeast: Ferments the batter so it rises and becomes airy.
Graham flour: Provides the bulk and structure of the batter, with its bran giving a coarser texture.
Baking soda: Reacts to add extra lift and help the loaves rise in the oven.
Brown sugar: Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and a mild molasses flavor.

“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.