Name: Walnut Bread
Ingredients: 1 cup chopped walnut meats; bread dough

Why it works: Walnut and meat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,035 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Walnut Bread

two small loaves

Ingredients

1 cup chopped walnut meats
bread dough

Directions

Make the loaves

Stir the chopped walnuts into the bread dough for two small loaves.
Mix well and treat the dough as you would ordinary bread dough.
Bake in pound baking powder cans.

Serve

Once cooled, cut into thin slices, butter them, and press two slices together.

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.

Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,035 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Meat + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,924 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Walnut + breadtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together714 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Walnut meats: Add crunch and a rich, nutty flavor that stands out in the soft bread.
Bread dough: Provides the structure and crumb that holds the walnuts through baking.