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Bread

Nut Brown Bread

Nut Brown Bread is a loaf made with graham flour, white flour, sour milk, molasses, nuts, salt, and baking soda.

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

Why it works: Flour and nuts are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,180 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Nut Brown 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Mix and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix together the graham flour, white flour, sour milk, molasses, nuts, salt, and baking soda.

  2. Pour the batter into a greased bread pan.

  3. Bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Flour + nutstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + nutstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together982 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Flour and milk 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

Graham flour
Provides the coarse, nutty body and brown colour of the crumb.
White flour
Adds gluten structure so the loaf holds its shape while it rises.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter and tenderise the crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and dark colour, and helps the crust brown.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that leavens the bread.

The step that matters

Check for doneness with a toothpick. Because the bread is sweet and moist, the centre can stay gummy even when the crust looks done. A toothpick inserted in the centre should come out clean before the loaf is removed.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Beansfits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, molasses. 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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