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Bread

Graham Bread

A loaf made from graham flour, white flour, sour milk, sugar, butter, baking powder, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

  1. Rub the butter into the flours.

  2. Add the baking powder, baking soda, and sugar.

  3. Stir in the sour milk until the mixture is very soft.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

  2. Bake until done, about 30-40 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 wheat body that give this loaf its hearty, nutty texture.
White flour
Adds gluten structure so the loaf holds its shape alongside the heavier graham flour.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to produce gas, helping the loaf rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release carbon dioxide for lift and tenderness.
Baking powder
Supplies additional leavening gas so the batter rises in the oven.
Butter
Coats the flour particles, adding richness and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Stir in the sour milk until the mixture is very soft. The batter must be wet enough for the bran in graham flour to absorb liquid and for the leavening to work evenly. A stiff batter bakes dense, while overmixing can toughen the crumb once the gluten develops.

“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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