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Bread

Diet Bread

Diet Bread is a low‑calorie bread made with sugar, water, eggs, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Diet Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. In a saucepan, combine ¾ pound loaf sugar and ½ cup water over medium heat. Stir until dissolved.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat 6 eggs with a whisk.

  3. Once the sugar mixture boils, pour it gently over the eggs while continuously whisking until cool.

  4. Stir the egg mixture into ¾ pound fine sifted flour until well combined.

Bake

  1. Prepare your baking frames by lining them with paper. Fill each frame three‑quarters full with the batter.

  2. Sprinkle sugar over the batter and bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Loaf sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the crust brown during baking.
Eggs
Provide structure as they set and add moisture to the crumb.
Fine sifted flour
Forms the main structure that holds the bread together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot syrup over the eggs. Pour the boiling syrup slowly while whisking constantly. This warms the eggs gradually, so they blend smoothly instead of scrambling into lumps.

“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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