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Dessert

Nut Bread

A sweet bread made with graham and white flour, milk, sugar, egg, baking powder, salt, and nuts.

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

Why it works: Flour and nuts are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,180 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Nut Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, sift together the graham flour, white flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

Mix and bake

  1. Add the milk and beaten egg to the dry ingredients and mix well.

  2. Fold in the nuts.

  3. Pour the batter into greased tins and let it stand for 20 minutes.

  4. Bake for 50 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. Flour + nutstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + nutstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together982 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

Graham flour
Provides the bulk and the coarse, nutty structure of the crumb.
White flour
Supplies gluten-forming protein that gives the loaf its structure and tender crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the loaf rises and becomes light.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and softness to the crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Baking the batter until it is fully set. Batter that is pulled too early stays wet in the center and can collapse as it cools. The toothpick test checks that the starches and proteins have set through the middle of the loaf.

Swap the nuts

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

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

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

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