Name: Graham Fruit Bread
Ingredients: 2 cups milk; 2 tablespoons active dry yeast; 2 heaping cups white flour; 1 tablespoon salt; ½ cup sugar or molasses; 3 cups sifted graham flour; 1 cup raisins or equal portions of raisins and dried currants

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Graham Fruit Bread

Ingredients

2 cups milk
2 tablespoons active dry yeast
2 heaping cups white flour
1 tablespoon salt
½ cup sugar or molasses
3 cups sifted graham flour
1 cup raisins or equal portions of raisins and dried currants

Directions

In a large bowl, combine milk, yeast, white flour, salt, and sugar or molasses. Beat well and set aside to rise.
Once the mixture is light, add graham flour until a soft dough forms. Knead for 20 minutes.
Add raisins or currants, washed and dried, and knead for a few more minutes.
Place the dough in a slightly buttered baking pan dusted with flour to prevent sticking. Let it rise again.
When the dough is very light, form it into a loaf and place it in the baking pan. Allow it to rise again before baking.
If the dough is very soft, oil your hands with a little butter for easier handling.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,155 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, sugar):

Vanillafits about as well
Raisinthe original
Figfits less well
Blueberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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Graham Fruit Bread