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Dessert

Fancy Fruit Bread

A sweet bread made with milk, yeast, butter, sugar, eggs, raisins, almonds, citron, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,781 recipes. Both carry 2-nonanone, which smells fruity, floral. The science ↓

Fancy 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. In a bowl, combine the milk, yeast, and some patent flour to create a warm slack sponge.

  2. Once the sponge is ready, mix in the sugar, butter, whole eggs, egg yolks, salt, and more flour.

  3. Incorporate the sultana raisins, chopped almonds, and citron into the mixture.

  4. Let the dough rise until it has doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into loaves or cakes.

  2. Place the shaped dough in bread or cake tins and allow it to rise again.

  3. Brush the dough with an egg wash before baking.

  4. Sprinkle almonds on top.

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

  6. Apply vanilla icing to the dough.

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. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Provides liquid to hydrate the flour and form the sponge and dough.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars in the sponge, producing gas that makes the dough rise.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Whole eggs
Add structure, richness, and moisture, and help the crumb set when baked.
Egg yolks
Add richness, fat, and tenderness to the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and feeds the yeast, and helps browning in the oven.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, sugar, egg, raisin, almond, lemon):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, egg, raisin, almond, lemon. 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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