Why it works: Flour and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,429 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Graham Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Make a sponge as for white bread and let it rise until light.
Pour the sponge into a tray with the sifted Graham flour, white flour, Indian meal, and salt.
Mix and knead the dough, adding molasses for two quarts of flour.
Make the dough very soft and set it to rise for an additional half hour.
Knead again when it has doubled in size and place in round pans for the final rise.
Bake
Bake in a steady oven for longer than white loaves, watching to prevent burning.
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 + molassestop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,429 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Graham flour
- Provides the coarse bran and wheat flavour that give this loaf its character.
- White flour
- Adds gluten so the dough can hold its rise alongside the coarser flour.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, moisture and a darker colour to the crumb.
The step that matters
Baking for longer than white loaves. Graham flour contains bran and sugars that brown faster and dry out more slowly than white flour, so the loaf can burn on the outside before the centre sets. Watching the crust and keeping the oven steady prevents this.
“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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