Name: Promotive Bread
Ingredients: ¾ pound seeded raisins; ¼ pound figs; 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

¾ pound seeded raisins
¼ pound figs
3 tablespoons flaxseed
2 pounds coarse flour

Directions

Prepare the dough

Grind the raisins, figs, and flaxseed together.
Mix the ground mixture with the coarse flour.

Bake, slice and store

Bake the mixture in the same manner as unfermented bread.
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).
Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together737 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Flaxseed + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together213 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Fig + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,192 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Seeded raisins: Add sweetness and moisture, and help the bread hold together as it sets.
Figs: Add sweetness, moisture and a soft, chewy texture to the crumb.
Flaxseed: Its gel-forming fibre absorbs liquid and helps bind the crumb and keep it moist.
Coarse flour: Provides the main structure and bulk that holds the fruit and seeds together.