Name: Graham Bread
Ingredients: 1 cup Orleans molasses; 1 cup home-made yeast; 1 quart warm water; 2 teaspoons salt; Graham flour (enough to make a soft dough)

Why it works: Molasses and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,429 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Graham Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

In a large bowl, combine molasses, yeast, warm water, and salt.
Stir in enough Graham flour to form a soft dough.

Rise and bake

Pour the dough into well-buttered pans.
Let the dough rise for 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Bake the loaves for 1 hour.

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 + flourtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,429 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Yeast: Ferments the dough so it rises and becomes light and airy.
Graham flour: Forms the dough's structure and gives the bread its coarse, nutty texture.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture, and feeds the yeast.

“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.