Name: Royal Baking Powder Bread
Ingredients: 1 quart flour; 1 teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon sugar; 2 heaping teaspoons Royal Baking Powder; 1 medium-sized cold boiled potato; water

Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Royal Baking Powder Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Sift together the flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder thoroughly.
Rub in the cold boiled potato.
Add enough water to mix into a smooth, stiff dough, about the consistency of cake batter.
Use about 1 pint of water for 1 quart of flour, adjusting as needed.
Place the dough in a greased pan (4½ by 8 inches and 4 inches deep), filling it about halfway.

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.

Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + potatotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,355 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + potatotop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).