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Dessert

Nut Bread

Nut bread made with molasses, nuts, raisins, and sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Nut Bread

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 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).

Mix and rise

  1. In a bowl, mix the graham flour, white flour, molasses, chopped nuts and raisins, sour milk, baking soda, and salt until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased loaf pan.

  3. Let it rise in a warm place for 20 minutes.

Bake

  1. Bake for 30 to 35 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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Nuts + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Graham flour
Gives the loaf its structure and hearty, nutty texture.
White flour
Adds gluten structure so the loaf holds its shape.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep color that browns the crust.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the loaf rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Chopped nuts and raisins
Add chewy texture and pockets of sweetness throughout the loaf.

The step that matters

Checking doneness with a toothpick. Quick breads with molasses and fruit look browned before the center sets. Testing the center with a toothpick confirms the crumb is fully cooked, since the outside can darken well before the inside is baked through.

Swap the nuts

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, molasses, raisin, 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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