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Bread

Date Bread

A yeast bread made with dates, molasses, and whole wheat flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Date Bread

Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Date Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Scald and cool the milk.

  2. Mix the yeast with ¼ cup of the milk.

  3. In a bowl, combine the remaining milk, salt, molasses, and chopped dates.

  4. Stir in 2 cups of whole wheat flour, adding more as needed.

Rise and bake

  1. When the dough doubles in size, shape it into a loaf.

  2. Let it rise again until light, then 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.

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. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Dates + wheattop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together69 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + datestop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Whole wheat flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough and the loaf together.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and turn light.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the loaf.
Dates
Add sweetness and moisture, and soften the crumb as the bread bakes.

The step that matters

Letting the dough double before shaping. Yeast needs time to ferment and build gas and structure. Shaping too early, before the dough has doubled, leaves a dense loaf, while letting it rise fully gives a light crumb.

Swap the dates

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Datesthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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