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Bread

Delicious Nut Bread

A sweet bread made with milk, molasses, flour, sugar, salt, and walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Delicious Nut Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the sweet milk, baking soda, all-purpose flour, molasses, graham flour, sugar, and salt until well combined.

  2. Fold in the chopped walnut meats.

  3. Pour the batter into a pan and let it stand for 20 minutes.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1 hour.

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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Walnut + meattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,035 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
All-purpose flour
Provides gluten structure that holds the loaf together.
Graham flour
Adds coarse bran and nutty flavor, giving a denser, heartier crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and deep color, and its acidity helps the baking soda react.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flours and provides moisture for the batter to set.

The step that matters

Let the batter stand before baking. Baking soda begins reacting as soon as it meets the acidic molasses and liquid, so the batter should go into the oven promptly after resting to keep gas bubbles that give lift.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, molasses, sugar, meat. 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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