Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Graham Crackers
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
In a bowl, combine sour milk, sugar, and baking soda.
Gradually add graham flour until the mixture is as stiff as possible.
Shape and bake
Roll the dough very thin.
Cut into desired shapes and bake.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Sour milk
- Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas, helping the dough rise slightly.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in sour milk to leaven the dough and help it brown.
- Graham flour
- Provides the bulk and structure of the dough, with its coarse bran adding texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the crackers brown during baking.
The step that matters
Rolling the dough very thin. Thin dough dries out and crisps evenly in the oven. If it is thick, the crackers stay soft and chewy in the middle and may not brown properly.
“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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