Name: Graham Crackers
Ingredients: ⅓ cup butter; 1 cup sugar; 1 cup graham flour; 1 teaspoon baking powder; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon milk

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Crackers

Ingredients

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.

Make the dough

Cream the butter in a bowl.
Gradually add the sugar and mix well.
In a separate bowl, combine graham flour, baking powder, and salt.
Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, alternating with milk, until combined.

Shape and bake

Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut into desired shapes.
Place on a baking sheet and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 10-12 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.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour 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

Butter: Creams with sugar to give the dough richness and a tender, crumbly texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the dough and helps it brown during baking.
Graham flour: Forms the main structure of the dough and gives the crackers their nutty, whole-grain flavour.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the dough to lighten it slightly as it bakes.
Milk: Adds moisture so the dry ingredients come together into a workable dough.

“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.