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Bread

Nut Bread

A simple loaf made with wheat flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, walnuts, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Nut Bread

Why it works: Wheat and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 246 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Nut 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.

Prepare the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the wheat flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar.

  2. Add the finely chopped walnut meats and mix well.

  3. Gradually add sweet milk until a stiff sponge forms.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide the mixture into two loaves and place in pans.

  2. Let the loaves rise for 30 minutes.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Wheat + walnuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together246 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,035 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Wheat flour
Forms the main structure of the loaf as its proteins and starches set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the loaves rise without yeast.
Walnut meats
Add richness, body and a nutty flavour to the crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Adding the milk gradually. Too much liquid at once makes the batter slack and the loaves dense or flat. Adding milk slowly lets you stop at a stiff sponge, which gives the baking powder a firm structure to lift.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits about as well
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Peanutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, flour, sugar, meat, milk. 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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