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Bran Nut Bread
Add one cup chopped nut meats with the flour in making Bran Bread.
This is a one-line variation, not a standalone formula — everything depends on the Bran Bread recipe it points back to. A few notes on making it work with a modern bran loaf.
- It is a rider, not a recipeYou need the book's Bran Bread entry for quantities, mixing method and bake time. Any soda- or baking-powder-raised bran loaf using roughly two to three cups of dry ingredients will take a cup of nuts without further adjustment.
- Which branBran here means unprocessed wheat bran — the loose, flaky miller's byproduct sold today as wheat bran or miller's bran. It is not bran flake cereal, which is sweetened and already baked, and not oat bran, which is finer and absorbs liquid differently.
- Nut meats"Nut meats" is simply shelled nuts. The recipe does not specify which; walnuts, pecans or hickory nuts suit it, and almonds and hazelnuts work but are drier. Chop to pea size so slices hold together.
- Toast them firstTen minutes at 350F on a dry sheet, cooled before use, sharpens the flavour considerably. Bran is a muffling ingredient and raw nuts disappear into it.
- Add with the flour, as instructedTossing the nuts through the dry ingredients coats them and keeps them suspended rather than sinking to the bottom of the loaf. This is the one direction the entry actually gives, and it is the right one.
- OvenIf the base recipe calls for a moderate oven, take that as roughly 350-375F. A bran loaf in a standard 9x5 pan runs about 45 to 55 minutes; a skewer in the centre should come out clean.
- CoolingBran loaves slice badly warm and crumble around the nuts. Cool completely, then wrap and hold overnight if you can — the crumb firms and the flavour improves.
- YieldDepends entirely on the base Bran Bread recipe; a standard 9x5 loaf gives twelve to fourteen slices. It slices thinly enough to butter.
Bran breads and nut breads both belong to the same early-twentieth-century enthusiasm, and this entry is what happens when the two collide. Bran arrived on the domestic table not as a flavour but as "roughage," promoted by health reformers and breakfast-food manufacturers from around the turn of the century, and cookbooks of the period worked it into loaves, muffins and gems. Nut breads were the other fashion: quick loaves leavened with baking powder or soda rather than yeast, cheap to make and sliceable. The brevity of the entry is characteristic of the genre, which expected the reader to hold the base recipe in hand and take the variation as a footnote to it.