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
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the sponge
Combine warm water, brown sugar or molasses, hop yeast, and salt in a bowl.
Thicken the mixture with unbolted flour to create a thin batter.
Stir in more flour until the mixture is quite stiff.
Rise and shape
In the morning, add baking soda and enough flour to make the batter stiff enough to stir with a spoon.
Transfer the batter into pans and let it rise again.
Keep the dough warm while it rises and smooth the tops of the loaves with a spoon or knife dipped in water.
Bake
Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C), starting at a lower temperature.
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.
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Unbolted flour
- Provides the structure that holds the loaves together as the dough thickens and sets.
- Hop yeast
- Produces gas that makes the dough rise and gives the bread a light, airy crumb.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic batter to release gas, adding extra rise in the morning batter.
- Brown sugar or molasses
- Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness, moisture and a deeper color to the crumb.
The step that matters
Adding baking soda and flour in the morning. Baking soda needs an acid in the batter to release gas; the batter must be stiff enough to trap that gas, or the loaves will rise poorly and collapse.
“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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