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Bread

Currant Bread

A sweet bread made with currants, candied peel, lard, sugar, eggs, buttermilk, and leavening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Currant Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Cream the lard, sugar, and eggs together for 10 minutes.

  2. Sift in the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  3. Add the currants and cut peel, and mix well with the buttermilk using a wooden spoon.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour in round or square shapes.

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. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Buttermilk + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 main structure that holds the loaf together as it bakes.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and keeps the bread moist.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the bread and helps create a soft, tender crumb when creamed with fat.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that react with the leavening to lift the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk and cream of tartar to produce gas that raises the loaf.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that activates the baking soda, helping the bread rise and stay light.

The step that matters

Creaming the lard, sugar, and eggs. Beating fat and sugar together for the full 10 minutes traps air in the mixture, which helps the bread rise and gives it an even, tender crumb. Under-creaming leaves a dense loaf.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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