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Bread

Nut Bread

Nut Bread is a loaf made with eggs, brown sugar, molasses, all-purpose and graham flour, milk, nuts, salt, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Nut Bread

Why it works: Sugar and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. 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 the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the brown sugar and molasses.

  3. Add the all-purpose flour, graham flour, and milk, and stir until combined.

  4. Fold in the chopped nuts, salt, and baking soda.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Flour + nutstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the loaf sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and batter acids to lift the loaf as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweet flavor.
Graham flour
Provides the bulk of the structure and a coarse, hearty texture.
All-purpose flour
Adds gluten for structure and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Fold in the baking soda gently and bake promptly. Baking soda starts reacting as soon as it meets the acidic molasses and batter, so its gas bubbles form quickly. Stirring too hard knocks out gas and toughens the gluten, while waiting too long lets the rise fade before the loaf sets in the oven.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, molasses, 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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