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Graham Bread

A yeast‑leavened loaf made with wheat and graham flour, sweetened with sugar, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Graham Bread

Ingredients

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.

Make the sponge

  1. Stir the yeast into the warm milk or water.

  2. Sift the wheat flour into a kneading bowl.

  3. Gradually add the yeast mixture to the flour and stir until smooth.

  4. Let the mixture rise overnight in a warm place.

Shape and bake

  1. In the morning, add the salt and sugar, then gradually mix in the graham flour.

  2. Beat well and let it rise in two baking pans for one hour.

  3. Bake for one hour at 350°F (175°C).

  4. If the crust is too hard, cover it with a damp towel and then a dry towel.

  5. Remove the loaf from the pan as soon as it's done and let it cool on its side.

  6. Once cool, store it in a clean, dry tin box or stone jar with a tight cover.

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. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

What each ingredient does

Yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise.
Wheat flour
Provides the main structure as gluten develops during stirring and rising.
Graham flour
Adds coarse bran and whole-grain texture and a nutty flavour to the loaf.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds a little sweetness and browning to the crust.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness to the dough; water can be used instead.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise overnight. Slow rising in a warm place lets the yeast develop flavour and gas gradually. Too cold stalls the rise, and too warm can over-ferment the dough and weaken its structure.

“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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