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Irish Loaf Bread

A yeasted loaf bread with raisins and caraway seed baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Irish Loaf 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 the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, caraway seed, and salt.

  3. In another bowl, whisk together the milk and egg.

  4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.

  5. Fold in the chopped raisins.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

  2. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + carawaytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together75 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Forms the structure of the loaf as its proteins and starches set during baking.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness to the crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the loaf rise and become light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and softness to the crumb.
Raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the loaf.

The step that matters

Mix until just combined. Once wet and dry ingredients meet, gluten begins to form. Overmixing toughens the bread and can make it dense, so stop as soon as no dry flour remains.

Swap the caraway

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Carawaythe original
  4. Jalapenofits about as well

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