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Dessert

Norwegian Sweetbread

A yeasted sweet bread with raisins, citron, and sugar, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Norwegian Sweetbread

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. Dissolve the fresh yeast in 4 cups of water.

  2. Add 1 cup of sugar, 2 tablespoons of sugar, 3 teaspoons of salt, and the beaten egg.

  3. Mix in 1 large tablespoon of lard and the citron pieces.

  4. Gradually add flour until a stiff dough forms.

  5. Incorporate the halved raisins and knead the dough.

  6. Let the dough rise until doubled in size, which takes longer than plain bread.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough and place it in a baking pan.

  2. Brush the top with lard and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon before baking.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Fresh yeast
Makes the dough rise by producing gas as it ferments.
Flour
Forms the dough structure that traps gas and holds the bread's shape.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning to the crust.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the dough for a tender crumb.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and moistens the bread.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the bread.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until doubled. Rising takes longer than plain bread because the sugar, fat and fruit slow yeast activity. Underproofing leaves a dense loaf, while the dough must be fully risen to trap enough gas for a light crumb.

“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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