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Bread

German Bread

A sweet bread made with bread sponge, sugar, butter, flour, cinnamon, and sugar dusting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,147 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

German Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Combine bread sponge, sugar, and butter in a mixing bowl.

  2. Beat until light and fluffy.

  3. Gradually stir in flour until the mixture is as thick as cake batter.

  4. Let the dough rise until it is light and doubled in size.

Prepare the tin

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a baking tin.

  3. Sift cinnamon over the bottom of the tin.

Bake

  1. Pour the dough into the prepared tin.

  2. Sift sugar over the top of the dough.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

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. Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Bread sponge
Provides the leavening and yeasted base that makes the dough rise.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a softer, richer crumb and flavour.
Flour
Gives the dough its structure once stirred in.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled. The dough needs enough time for the yeast in the sponge to build gas and expand. Underproofed dough bakes dense, while overproofed dough can collapse.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, butter, flour, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, butter, flour, cinnamon. 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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