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Bread

Nut Bread

A sweet bread made with sugar, milk, flour, egg, salt, pecans, and baking powder.

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

Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

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.

Prepare

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

Make and bake the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine sugar, milk, flour, egg, salt, chopped pecans, and baking powder, and mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

  3. Bake for about 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Milk + pecanstop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + pecanstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,280 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Flour
Forms the structure of the loaf as its proteins and starches set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the loaf rise and become light.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps hydrate the flour to form the batter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to browning of the crust.

The step that matters

Testing for doneness with a toothpick. Baked breads can look set on top while the center is still wet. A toothpick inserted in the center should come out clean, showing the interior has fully set and the batter is cooked through.

Swap the pecans

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

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

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