Skip to main content
Bread

Nut Bread

Nut Bread is a loaf made with milk, egg, sugar, nuts, flour, baking powder, salt, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Nut Bread

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 ↓

Nut 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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine sweet milk and beaten egg.

  2. Add scant sugar, nuts, salt, and melted butter to the mixture.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix flour and baking powder.

  4. Combine the wet and dry ingredients, then let the batter stand for 30 minutes to rise.

Bake

  1. Grease a loaf pan and pour in the batter.

  2. Bake for 1 hour.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Nuts + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour 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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the loaf as its proteins and starches set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the loaf rise and become light.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Nuts
Add flavor, texture and crunch to the crumb.

The step that matters

Letting the batter stand before baking. The batter is meant to rest 30 minutes so the baking powder starts releasing gas and the loaf rises well. Skipping or shortening the rest can leave the bread denser, and the batter should be poured into the pan before the rise is lost.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Milletfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

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

More nut bread recipes

Graham 7Hickory 5Banana 4Brown 4 See all 103 →

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes