Name: Pumpkin Bread
Ingredients: pumpkin; wheat flour; yeast

Why it works: Pumpkin and wheat work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 134 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients

pumpkin
wheat flour
yeast

Directions

Remove the rind from the pumpkin and cut it into slices.
Boil the pumpkin slices until soft, then strain and mash them finely.
For bread, mix in ⅓ to ½ as much wheat flour as pumpkin.
Prepare a sponge with yeast and flour, then add the pumpkin as it begins to rise.
Use enough pumpkin to achieve a stiff dough without adding water.
Ensure the pumpkin is not too hot to scald the yeast.
Bake longer than regular wheat bread.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Pumpkin + wheattop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together134 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Pumpkin + flourtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,624 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).