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Bread

Nut Bread

Nut Bread is a yeast loaf made with evaporated cream, molasses, hazelnuts, and whole wheat and all-purpose flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Nut Bread

Why it works: Hazelnut and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 464 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Nut 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.

Make the dough

  1. Add the softened yeast cake to the evaporated cream, lukewarm water, molasses, salt, and nuts.

  2. Stir in the flour; you may need a little more flour.

  3. Knead the dough until elastic.

  4. Set the dough to rise in a warm place until light.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into loaves and let rise again until light.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about an 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.

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. Hazelnut + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together464 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Hazelnut + wheattop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together25 recipes

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

  3. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Cream + hazelnuttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together332 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Yeast
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light and airy.
Whole wheat flour
Provides the main structure and a hearty, nutty flavor for the loaf.
All-purpose flour
Adds gluten strength so the dough stretches and holds its shape.
Hazelnuts
Add crunch and a toasty, rich flavor throughout the bread.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Knead the dough until elastic. Kneading develops gluten strands that trap the gas yeast produces. Under-kneaded dough rises poorly and bakes up dense, while the stretch test shows when it is ready.

Swap the hazelnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, molasses, wheat, flour):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Flaxseedfits about as well
  4. Hazelnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, molasses, wheat, flour. 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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