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Bread

Nut Bread

Nut Bread is a sweet bread made with flour, nuts, sugar, salt, baking powder, egg, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Nut Bread

Why it works: Flour and nuts are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,180 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Nut Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.

  3. Add the sugar and chopped nuts to the dry mixture.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the beaten egg and milk, then add to the dry ingredients. Mix until just combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into bread pans and let it rise for 20 minutes.

  2. Bake 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. Flour + nutstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Nuts + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together982 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Flour and milk 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the bread as its proteins and starches set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, lifting the loaf so it rises and becomes light.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets in the oven.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture, helping form a tender crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Chopped nuts
Add texture and fat, along with a toasty flavor as the bread bakes.

The step that matters

Mix until just combined. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes the bread tough and dense. Stir only until the dry ingredients are moistened, leaving a few small lumps.

Swap the nuts

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

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

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