Name: Graham Bread
Ingredients: 1 quart milk; 1 quart water; 1 large spoonful molasses; 1 large spoonful sugar; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); Graham flour (to stiffen)

Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Graham Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a small bowl, combine milk and water.
Add molasses, sugar, baking soda, and salt; mix well.
Stiffen the mixture with Graham flour until it's a little stiffer than cake batter.

Rise and bake

Let the dough rise like other loaves.
Bake until golden brown.

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.

Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,225 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,429 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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

Graham flour: Provides the structure that stiffens the batter into a dough.
Milk: Adds moisture and richness, and helps browning on the crust.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark color and a deep flavor to the loaf.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the loaf 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.