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Moravian Bread

A yeasted bread with butter, sugar, cinnamon, and eggs, baked in a pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Moravian Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Scald the milk with the butter until lukewarm.

  2. Add salt, yeast cake, and flour; mix well.

  3. Let the dough rise in a warm place for 2.5 hours.

  4. Beat in the eggs and brown sugar.

  5. Let it rise for another hour.

Fill and bake

  1. Punch down the dough, pour into pans, and let it rise for 30 minutes.

  2. Mix the remaining butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar.

  3. Make holes in the dough and fill with the mixture.

  4. Bake for 20 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Yeast cake
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and become airy.
Flour
Forms the gluten structure that traps gas and gives the bread its body.
Eggs
Add richness and structure, helping the crumb set and hold its shape.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in both the dough and the filling.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the dough and filling and promotes browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise fully. The yeast needs enough time and warmth to produce gas; rising too briefly leaves the bread dense, while the later rise in the pans lets it expand before baking.

“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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