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Dessert

Nut Bread

A steamed bread made with nuts, bread crumbs, molasses, butter, egg, milk, and spices.

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

Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Nut Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine the nuts, bread crumbs, molasses, baking soda, cinnamon, and ginger.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the melted butter with the beaten egg and milk.

  3. Combine the wet and dry ingredients and mix well.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased steaming dish.

  2. Steam for 2 hours.

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark color, and a moist, dense crumb.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps give the bread structure as it sets.
Bread crumbs
Add body and absorb liquid, giving the loaf a soft, tender texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lighten the batter and aid rising.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a tender texture and mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Steam for 2 hours. Steam must be kept steadily flowing and the water level maintained for the full time. Uneven or low steam leaves the centre gummy or underbaked, since the batter sets gradually through gentle moist heat.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, molasses, cinnamon, ginger, butter, egg, milk):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Pecansfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, molasses, cinnamon, ginger, butter, egg, 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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