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Bread

Cinnamon Bread

A sweet roll dough loaf flavored with butter, sugar, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cinnamon Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Make Sweet Roll dough, increasing the flour to about 3 cups.

  2. After the first rising, punch down the dough.

  3. Knead the dough.

Shape and fill

  1. Roll the dough into a rectangle 1½ inches thick.

  2. Spread softened butter over the dough.

  3. Sprinkle the dough with a mixture of sugar and cinnamon.

  4. Roll the dough like a jelly roll.

  5. Place the rolled dough in a buttered loaf pan.

Rise and bake

  1. Brush the top with melted butter.

  2. Cover with a clean cloth.

  3. Let it rise.

  4. Bake for 30 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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 + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the sweet roll dough its structure and chew.
Softened butter
Adds fat and richness, and keeps the spiced layer tender and moist as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the top brown during baking.
Ground cinnamon
Provides the warm, aromatic flavour of the spiced filling.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough like a jelly roll. If the dough is rolled too tightly or unevenly, the filling can squeeze out or leave gaps, so slices bake unevenly. A firm, even roll keeps the spiral intact during rising and baking.

“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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