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Bread

Graham Fruit Bread

A fruit bread made with graham flour, white flour, nuts, raisins, dates, and sour milk, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Sift the graham flour and white flour into a bowl.

  2. Add the water, sour milk, salt, chopped nuts, sugar, sultana raisins, baking soda, and chopped dates in the order given, then mix the ingredients until well combined.

  3. Turn the mixture into a buttered and floured bread tin.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

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.

  1. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Nuts + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Raisin + datestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together358 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Nuts + datestop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together178 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Graham flour
Provides the bulk and the coarse, nutty structure of the loaf.
White flour
Adds gluten strength so the loaf holds its shape alongside the heavier graham flour.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to make the loaf rise and gives a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to release gas, leavening the batter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown in the oven.
Sultana raisins
Add sweetness and moisture to the loaf.

Swap the dates

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Datesthe original

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

“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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