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Bread

Steamed Indian Bread

A steamed bread made with cornmeal, flour, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Steamed Indian Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift the cornmeal and flour into a mixing bowl, then add the salt.

  2. Mix the sour milk and molasses together.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the cold water and stir into the milk and molasses mixture.

  4. Add this mixture to the flour and cornmeal, and beat well.

  5. Melt the butter and add it to the batter, then pour into a well-buttered bread pan.

Steam and bake

  1. Cover the pan and place it in a steamer. Cook for 4.5 hours.

  2. Remove the pan from the steamer and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for an additional 30 minutes.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Cornmeal
Provides the coarse, crumbly body that gives this bread its structure.
Flour
Adds structure and binds the cornmeal so the loaf holds together.
Sour milk or buttermilk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter as it cooks.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that leavens the bread.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the loaf.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda and stirring it into the sour milk mixture. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release gas. Mixing it evenly into the acidic milk before combining with the dry ingredients spreads the leavening through the batter so the loaf rises evenly rather than in patches.

“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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