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Scotch Bread

Scotch Bread is a sweet, cinnamon-flavored bread made with flour, eggs, sugar, butter, and ammonia.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Scotch 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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, ammonia, butter, and cinnamon until well combined.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough to a thickness of 1 inch or less and scallop the edges.

  2. Bake until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Stack three or four cakes on top of one another and cut into slices.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 main structure of the dough as its proteins and starches set on baking.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crumb stay tender and browned at the surface.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor through the dough.
Ammonia
Releases gas as it heats, helping the dough rise and lighten during baking.
Cinnamon
Contributes the warm, aromatic flavor that defines the bread.

The step that matters

Roll the dough to a thickness of 1 inch or less. Thickness controls how evenly heat reaches the center. Dough rolled thicker than about 1 inch may stay doughy inside while the outside browns too quickly, so keeping it thin helps the whole piece bake through evenly.

Swap the cinnamon

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

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

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