Why it works: Bread and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,997 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓
Bread Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Trim the crusts off the bread slices and toast them.
Place the toast in a bowl, sprinkling a little coarse sea salt and sugar on each slice.
Pour freshly boiling water over the toast, cover the bowl tightly, and place it in a basin of boiling water.
Cook until the bread has a jelly-like consistency.
Serve warm with additional sugar and a grating of nutmeg.
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.
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Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,997 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together23,364 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Bread + sugartop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,638 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Gingerfits less well
- Clovefits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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