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Bread

Diet Bread

A sweet lemon and cinnamon bread made with sugar, eggs, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Diet Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat together 1 lb. sifted sugar and 4 eggs for 1 hour.

  2. Add 1 lb. dried and sifted flour, the juice of 1 lemon, and the grated rind of 1 lemon.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C).

Alternative method

  1. Alternatively, boil 1 lb. loaf sugar in 1 pint of water.

  2. Whisk it with 8 eggs until cold, then stir in 1 lb. fine flour.

  3. Keep beating until ready to put into the oven, which should be hot at 400°F (200°C) for about 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.

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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Whisked eggs trap air that lifts and sets the crumb.
Flour
Starch and proteins set during baking to form the loaf's structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the bread and helps stabilise the beaten egg foam.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and brightness that balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Keep beating until the oven is ready. Beaten eggs hold air bubbles that give the loaf its rise. If the foam collapses while waiting, the bread will be denser, so keep beating until it goes in the oven.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, flour, cinnamon):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, flour, cinnamon. 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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