Skip to main content
Main

Walnut Loaf

A baked loaf made with eggs, sugar, milk, flour, baking powder, salt, and walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and walnut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,873 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Walnut Loaf

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.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix together the eggs, sugar, and milk.

  2. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt, and mix until combined.

  3. Fold in the walnuts.

Rise and bake

  1. Let the mixture rise in the pan for 15 minutes.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

Finish

  1. After baking, roll the loaf in a damp towel.

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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + walnuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

Milk and flour 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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the loaf its structure.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the loaf hold together as it bakes.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps the batter come together.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crumb brown lightly in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, lifting the loaf and giving it a lighter crumb.
Walnuts
Add texture and a nutty flavour throughout the loaf.

The step that matters

Mix only until the flour is combined. Once flour is wet, gluten develops with each stir. Overmixing after adding the flour makes the loaf tough and dense, so stop as soon as no dry flour remains.

Swap the walnut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk, flour. 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 walnut loaf recipes

Cake 3 See all 6 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes