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Health Food Bread with Dates

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Health Food Bread with Dates

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

  1. Mix sugar, lukewarm water, salt, and yeast cake until dissolved.

  2. Gradually add flour to form a kneadable dough.

  3. Knead the dough until smooth, then cover and let it rise until doubled in size.

  4. Punch down the dough, fold in the dates, and shape it into a loaf.

  5. Place the loaf in a buttered bread pan, let it rise again.

  6. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 50 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Dates + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + datestop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together985 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, 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

Swap the dates

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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