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Bread

Prune Bread

A loaf made with prunes, graham and white flour, sour milk, molasses, brown sugar, cream, salt, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Prune Bread

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.

Prepare

  1. Soak the prunes until soft, then slice and flour them before measuring.

Make and bake the bread

  1. In a large bowl, combine the graham flour, white flour, sour milk, molasses, brown sugar, cream, salt, and baking soda.

  2. Fold in the sliced prunes.

  3. Pour the batter into two greased loaf pans.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and milk 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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda so the loaves rise and lighten.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that leavens the bread.
Graham flour
Forms the main structure of the loaf and gives it a hearty, coarse texture.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and deep color to the crumb and crust.
Sliced prunes
Add moisture and sweetness, and their flouring helps keep them suspended in the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the prunes. Heavy fruit can sink to the bottom of the loaf if it is not evenly distributed and coated in flour. Floured prunes gripping the batter help them stay suspended, and gentle folding avoids deflating the batter's gas bubbles.

“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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