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Steamed Indian Bread

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

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 corn meal and flour into a mixing bowl and 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 corn meal, 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.

  2. Cook for 4.5 hours.

  3. Remove the pan from the steamer.

  4. 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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

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

Corn meal
Gives the bread its coarse, crumbly structure and characteristic grainy texture.
Flour
Provides structure so the batter holds together as it steams and sets.
Sour milk or buttermilk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter and adds tang.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas, helping the bread rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the finished bread.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda and combining it with the acidic milk. Baking soda needs an acid to release carbon dioxide. Mixing it promptly into the sour milk and batter lets the gas form while the batter is still wet and can trap bubbles, so the bread rises rather than staying dense.

“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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