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Dessert

Modern Cookery

A sweet bread made with bread crumbs, beef suet, sugar, lemon zest, currants, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,032 recipes. Both carry 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, which smells popcorn, roasted. The science ↓

Modern Cookery

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Mix and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs, beef suet, pounded sugar, and currants.

  2. Grate the lemon zest and add it to the mixture.

  3. Beat the eggs and incorporate them into the mixture until well combined.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a greased dish and smooth the top.

  5. Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve warm, optionally sprinkling sifted sugar on top.

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. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

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

  3. Bread + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it into a sliceable, cohesive loaf as they bake.
Beef suet
Adds fat and richness, keeping the crumb moist and tender.
Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that the other ingredients are held in.
Pounded sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of concentrated sweetness throughout the bread.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs into the mixture. Eggs must be fully combined so they set evenly during baking; unevenly mixed egg leaves streaks or dense pockets that do not cook through at the same rate.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, beef, sugar, lemon, egg):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, beef, sugar, lemon, 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.

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