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Bread

Graham Bread

A yeast‑leavened bread made with graham flour, all‑purpose flour, molasses, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Graham Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift together the graham flour, all-purpose flour, brown sugar, and salt. Rub in the butter.

  2. Add the molasses with the baking soda dissolved in it. Next, add the lukewarm milk and the yeast dissolved in the lukewarm water.

  3. Knead the dough well for twenty minutes, then cover and let it rise.

Shape and bake

  1. After rising, form the dough into two loaves and place them in pans to rise again.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 coarse bran and whole-grain structure that gives this loaf its nutty, dense texture.
All-purpose flour
Adds gluten that gives the dough elasticity and helps it hold its shape.
Yeast
Produces carbon dioxide during fermentation, making the dough rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, and its proteins and sugars help the crust brown.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep flavour that also contributes to browning.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to release gas, adding some lift to the dough.

The step that matters

Kneading the dough for twenty minutes. Kneading develops the gluten network that traps the gas from the yeast. Bran in graham flour cuts through gluten, so thorough kneading is needed for the loaf to rise well and hold its shape.

“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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