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Bread

Nut Bread

Nut Bread is a loaf made with pastry flour, whole wheat flour, sugar, milk, egg, baking powder, salt, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Nut Bread

Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Nut Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift together pastry flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar.

  2. Mix in whole wheat flour.

  3. Slowly add milk and then the well-beaten egg.

  4. Beat well and fold in chopped nuts.

Bake

  1. Pour into a well-greased loaf pan and let stand for 20 minutes.

  2. Bake for one hour at 350°F (175°C).

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. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

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

  2. Wheat + nutstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together57 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Pastry flour
Provides the main structure of the loaf with a tender crumb, since it has less gluten than bread flour.
Whole wheat flour
Adds body and a nutty, heartier texture to the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the loaf rises in the oven.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets during baking.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and softness to the crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Folding in the nuts and letting the batter stand. Overmixing after the flour is added develops gluten and toughens the loaf, so the nuts should be folded in gently. Baking powder starts releasing gas once wet, so the batter should go into the oven promptly after resting.

Swap the nuts

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

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

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