Name: Promotive Bread
Ingredients: 1 pound seeded raisins; 3 tablespoons flaxseed; 2 pounds coarse flour

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Promotive Bread

Ingredients

1 pound seeded raisins
3 tablespoons flaxseed
2 pounds coarse flour

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Grind the seeded raisins with the flaxseed.
Mix in the coarse flour until well combined.

Bake and finish

Bake in the same manner as unfermented bread at 350°F (175°C).
Slice the bread into ½ inch slices.
Expose the slices to the sun before storing in a bread box.

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flaxseed + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together213 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + flaxseedtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).