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Quick Nut Bread

A quick bread made with eggs, sugar, sweet milk, flour, baking powder, salt, and walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and walnut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Quick Nut Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg in a bowl.

  2. Add sugar and sweet milk, and mix well.

  3. Sift together baking powder, flour, and salt, then add to the wet mixture.

  4. Fold in the chopped walnuts.

  5. Let the batter rise in the pan for 15 minutes.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until golden.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + walnuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten structure that holds the loaf together.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it reacts with the batter, lifting the bread so it rises.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and tenderness to the crumb.
Chopped walnuts
Add texture and a toasty, nutty flavor throughout the loaf.

The step that matters

Let the batter rise in the pan before baking. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it is wet and mixed, so the batter should go into the oven promptly after resting. Waiting too long lets gas escape before the structure sets, which can leave a flatter, denser loaf.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Milletfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

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