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Dessert

My Mom's Poppy Seed Bread

A sweet bread loaf with poppy seeds, baked with milk, oil, and flavored with vanilla and almond extract.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Poppy seed and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 91 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven350°F
Time1 hour and 15 minutes

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

  • Glaze

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Blend dry ingredients with milk and oil, beat eggs thoroughly and add flavorings.

  2. Pour into 2 ungreased bread loaf pans.

Bake and test

  1. Bake at 350°F for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

  2. Test with a toothpick.

Make and add the glaze

  1. Meanwhile, melt butter, add juice, sugar, vanilla and almond extract.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Remain warm.

  4. When bread is done, drag a knife around edges of your pan, poke holes with a fork in random pattern.

  5. Drizzle glaze over and in cake.

Cool and store

  1. Cool thoroughly.

  2. Wrap in Saran Wrap.

  3. Refrigerate or freeze.

  4. Could also make muffins or smaller loaves.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Poppy seed + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together91 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together19,175 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Milk + buttertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

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

  4. Poppy seed + almondtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together91 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together35,031 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla share little aroma chemistry, yet 35,031 recipes mention both: they likely 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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the crumb together as the batter bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crumb brown and stay moist.
Oil
Keeps the crumb moist and tender after baking and cooling.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the loaves rise and open up.
Poppy seeds
Add a nutty crunch and visible speckling to the crumb.

The step that matters

Drizzle glaze over and in cake. The glaze must be warm and the loaf must be freshly baked and still warm so that it soaks into the holes poked with a fork. Cold glaze on a cooled loaf sits on the surface instead of soaking in.

“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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