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Bread

Dutch Bread

A sweet bread made from a sponge, sugar, eggs, milk, shortening, and flour, baked with a cream wash and sugar‑cinnamon topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Dutch Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Combine bread sponge, sugar, eggs, milk, and shortening in a bowl.

  2. Add enough flour to make a stiff dough that can be stirred with a spoon.

  3. Let the dough rise until light.

Shape and bake

  1. Transfer the dough to pans.

  2. Wash the top with cream and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon, adding a little butter on top.

  3. Let it stand until light again.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 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.

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

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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 flavour that makes the dough rise and turn light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the dough bake up tender with a set crumb.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the dough and helps browning on the surface.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a soft, moist texture.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast during rising and adds sweetness and browning to the crust.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its stiff structure and holds the rise.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until light. The dough needs enough time for the yeast in the sponge to produce gas and expand the gluten network. Rising too short leaves a dense loaf, while over-proofing can cause it to collapse in the oven.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

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