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Bread

Prune Brown Bread

A yeast bread made with whole wheat flour, brown sugar, butter, milk, and prunes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Prune Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Scald the milk and let it cool slightly.

  2. Add the brown sugar, yeast, and flour to the milk and let it rise until doubled in bulk.

  3. Add the melted butter and the prunes, which should be washed, pitted, and finely chopped.

  4. Knead the mixture well and shape it into a loaf in a bread pan.

Bake

  1. Let it rise again and then bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°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. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

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

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

Whole wheat flour
Provides the structure of the loaf and holds the dough together.
Yeast
Ferments the sugars so the dough rises and becomes airy.
Milk
Moistens the dough and adds softness and richness to the crumb.
Prunes
Add natural sweetness, moisture, and dark flavor throughout the loaf.
Melted butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a richer texture.
Brown sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and mild molasses flavor.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled. The first rise lets yeast produce gas that expands the dough. Under-proofing leaves a dense loaf, while over-proofing can collapse the structure and weaken the final rise.

“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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