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Bread

Graham or Entire Wheat Bread

A simple bread made with graham or whole wheat flour, molasses, baking soda, salt, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Graham or Entire Wheat 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in a little hot water and stir it into the molasses until it foams.

  3. In a large bowl, combine the graham flour and salt.

Make and bake

  1. Pour the foaming molasses mixture over the flour and add enough milk to make a stiff dough.

  2. Divide the dough into two pans and bake until done.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Flour and milk 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

Graham flour
Provides the main structure and body of the bread.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to release gas that lifts the dough.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and color, and its acidity activates the baking soda.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so it forms a stiff, cohesive dough.

The step that matters

Stirring the baking soda into the molasses until it foams. Baking soda reacts with the acid in molasses to release carbon dioxide bubbles. The reaction starts right away, so the foaming mixture should be added to the flour promptly to trap the gas in the dough and help it rise.

“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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