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 ↓
Fruit Loaf
Ingredients
Directions
Dissolve the yeast in 2 tablespoons of lukewarm milk.
Add the yeast mixture to the remaining cooled scalded milk.
Stir in the white flour and beat thoroughly until foamy.
Sift together the graham and whole wheat flour, then beat it into the mixture.
Knead the dough for 20 minutes, adding more flour if necessary.
Wash, seed, and dry the raisins, then dredge them in flour and work them into the dough.
Allow the dough to rise, then shape it for the pans.
Let it rise again in the pans before baking.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,418 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,373 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Wheat + raisintop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together163 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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, wheat):
- Raisinthe original
- Vanillafits about as well
- Figfits less well
- Blueberryfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, wheat. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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