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Dessert

Cinnamon Bread

A cinnamon bread topped with a stiffened egg white cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cinnamon Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine flour, yeast sponge, beaten eggs, lukewarm water, sugar, and salt.

  2. Knead the mixture until it forms a light dough, then set it aside to rise.

  3. Once risen, roll the dough into thin cakes and place them in well-buttered pans.

  4. Allow the cakes to rise again.

Bake and finish

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and bake the cakes until they are light brown on top.

  2. For the cream, beat the egg white until stiff, then mix in cinnamon and sugar.

  3. Spread the cream over the baked bread and return it to the oven to dry the cream.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the gluten structure that holds the dough and cakes together.
Yeast sponge
Ferments the dough so it rises and becomes light and airy.
Eggs
Add structure and richness to the dough, helping it set when baked.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown in the oven.
Egg white
Whipped to stiffness to form a light cream that holds its shape on the bread.

The step that matters

Rising the shaped cakes. The cakes must rise fully before baking. Yeast produces gas that expands the dough, and underproofed dough stays dense and heavy in the oven.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Jalapenofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, sugar, cream, butter. 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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