Name: Directions for Making Whole-meal Bread. with Baking Powder.
Ingredients: 2 pounds coarsely-ground whole wheat meal; ½ pound fine flour or ½ pound fine Scotch oatmeal; baking powder (amount not specified)

Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Directions for Making Whole-meal Bread. with Baking Powder.

Ingredients

2 pounds coarsely-ground whole wheat meal
½ pound fine flour or ½ pound fine Scotch oatmeal
baking powder (amount not specified)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Mix and shape

Mix the whole wheat meal and fine flour or oatmeal thoroughly.
Add baking powder according to package instructions.
Shape the mixture into flat cakes.

Bake

Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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.

Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Coarsely-ground whole wheat meal: Provides the main bulk and a hearty, slightly coarse structure, with bran adding texture.
Fine flour or fine scotch oatmeal: Fills gaps between coarse meal particles, giving a smoother, more tender crumb.
Baking powder: Releases gas as it reacts with moisture and heat, helping the cakes rise.

“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.