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Bread

Nut Bread

A loaf of whole wheat bread studded with walnuts, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Nut Bread

Why it works: Wheat and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 246 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. 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).

  2. In a bowl, mix the whole wheat flour, baking powder, and salt.

Make the batter

  1. Add the milk and water, and stir until combined.

  2. Fold in the chopped walnuts last.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

  2. Bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Wheat + walnuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together246 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 main structure of the loaf as its proteins and starch set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, lifting the loaf so it rises and becomes light.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, and helps browning through its milk sugars.
Chopped walnuts
Add texture and richness from their fat, giving the bread crunch and flavour.

The step that matters

Stir only until combined. Overmixing once the liquids are added develops gluten in the wheat flour, which makes the loaf tough and dense instead of tender.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Milletfits better
  2. Almondfits about as well
  3. Flaxseedfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, flour, milk. 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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