Name: Bread
Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 1 tablespoon shortening; 1 cup sweet milk

Why it works: Flour and milk 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 ↓

Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon shortening
1 cup sweet milk

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Sift flour and baking powder together.
Rub in shortening.

Mix and knead

Add milk and mix thoroughly.
Turn out on a floured board and knead well.

Bake and serve

Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C).
Let stand for a few minutes before serving.

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.

Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk 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

All-purpose flour: Provides the structure that holds the bread together as it bakes.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the dough so the bread rises and becomes light.
Shortening: Coats flour particles to tenderise the crumb and add richness.
Sweet milk: Hydrates the flour to form a dough and adds moisture and flavour.