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Bread

Nut Cream Bread

A yeast bread with cream, milk, nuts, raisins, and butter, baked into loaves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Nut Cream Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sponge

  1. Scald the cream and milk, then add the butter, lard, and sugar while hot.

  2. When lukewarm, beat in enough bread flour to make a thin sponge and stir in the dissolved yeast, beating well for 2 minutes.

  3. Set this mixture aside overnight.

Make the dough

  1. In the morning, dissolve ¼ teaspoon of baking soda in warm water and beat it into the batter.

  2. Whip the eggs and stir them in, then dredge the nuts and raisins and mix well.

  3. Add just enough flour to make a soft biscuit dough.

Rise, shape and bake

  1. Let the dough rise for about 2 hours, then knead it down.

  2. Let it rise three times, then form into loaves and let rise for about 20 minutes.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for about 45 minutes, depending on the size of the loaves.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Nuts + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the crumb set and hold the nuts and raisins.
Pecan nuts
Add fat, flavour and crunch that contrast with the soft crumb.
Lard
Tenderises the crumb and adds moisture and richness.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, softening the texture of the bread.
Yeast
Produces gas during fermentation, making the dough rise and become light.
Bread flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure and chew.

The step that matters

Rising the dough. Yeast needs time and warmth to build gas and flavour, and the dough must be fully risen before shaping. Under-proofed loaves stay dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse in the oven.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, milk, sugar, raisin, egg, butter, bread):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, milk, sugar, raisin, egg, butter, bread. 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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