Skip to main content
Main

Nut Loaf

A baked loaf made from walnuts, bread crumbs, milk, butter, sage, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Nut Loaf

Why it works: Walnut and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 179 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Nut Loaf

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Soak the bread or cracker crumbs in milk.

  2. In a bowl, combine the soaked crumbs, chopped walnuts, butter, sage, and beaten eggs. Mix well until combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding dish or double boiler.

  2. Bake slowly until set and golden.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Walnut + sagetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together179 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it into a firm, sliceable loaf when baked.
English walnuts
Provide the bulk, nutty flavour and chewy texture of the loaf.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Absorb the milk and give the loaf body and a soft, tender crumb.
Milk
Moistens the crumbs and keeps the loaf tender as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for flavour and a softer texture.

The step that matters

Bake slowly until set. Eggs set through gentle heat; baking too hot can curdle and toughen them and dry the loaf, so a slow bake keeps it smooth and moist.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against walnut, bread, milk, butter, 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 loaf recipes

Cake 7 See all 36 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipesOatmeal BreadOatmeal Bread51 recipes