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Bread

Southern Fruit Bread

A sweet loaf made with molasses, lard, raisins, allspice, and yeast, baked at 350°F.

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 sponge

  1. Set a sponge with 1 gallon of water and 3 ounces of yeast.

  2. Bake 20 pounds of white sponge.

Make the dough

  1. When the sponge is ready, work in 2 quarts of molasses, 1 pound of lard, 3 pounds of currants or raisins, 3 ounces of salt, and 2 ounces of allspice.

  2. Add flour to make a medium dough; let it rise once and then work it over.

  3. Scale the dough into pieces to sell at five cents each; mold into rounds.

Shape and bake

  1. Place in round bread tins and let rise for half the time; make a cross cut on top.

  2. Wash the loaves and finish proving.

  3. Sprinkle a little granulated sugar in the center of each loaf and bake at 350°F (175°C).

  4. Alternatively, divide each loaf into six pieces, mold into ovals, and place in long bread tins or on pans to bake touching each other.

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.
Flour
Forms the gluten structure that traps gas and gives the loaf its crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark color that encourages browning.
Lard
Adds fat, which tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.
Currants or raisins
Add sweetness, moisture and fruit flavor throughout the loaf.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise and prove fully before baking. Yeast needs time to produce gas; under-proved dough bakes dense, while over-proved dough can collapse and lose its structure in the oven.

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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