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Southern Fruit Bread

A yeast bread with molasses, lard, currants or raisins, allspice, and coarse sea salt, baked in a moderate oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and allspice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,359 recipes. Both carry ethyl benzoate, which smells fruity, sweet. The science ↓

Southern Fruit Bread

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

  1. Make a sponge with 1 gallon water and 3 ounces yeast.

  2. Mix the sponge with 2 quarts molasses, 1 pound lard, 3 pounds currants or raisins, 3 ounces coarse sea salt, and 2 ounces allspice.

  3. Add flour to form a medium dough, let rise once, then knead again.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide dough into pieces, shape into rounds, and place in round bread tins.

  2. Let dough rise halfway, make a cross cut on top, wash with water, and finish rising.

  3. Sprinkle a little granulated sugar in the center of each loaf.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  2. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + allspicetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,508 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Yeast
Ferments the sponge, producing gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture that keeps the loaf soft.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries the spice flavor.
Currants or raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture, and concentrated fruit flavor throughout the bread.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure to trap rising gas.

The step that matters

Let dough rise halfway before cross cutting and washing. Cutting and washing too early deflates the gas-filled dough, while waiting too long can over-stretch the gluten and weaken the loaf's structure during baking.

Swap the currant

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

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

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

“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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