Why it works: Milk and wheat 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 ↓
Nut Bread
Ingredients
Directions
In a bowl, combine the heated and cooled milk, yeast, sugar, melted butter, and salt.
Add enough white flour to create a batter and set aside overnight.
The next morning, mix in the chopped nuts and enough whole wheat flour to form a stiff batter.
When the batter is light, shape it into a loaf, being careful not to over-proof.
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.
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Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,418 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Nuts + wheattop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together57 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,373 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
Swap the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, butter, flour, wheat):
- Almondfits better
- Milletfits better
- Walnutfits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, butter, flour, wheat. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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