Name: Steamed Brown Bread
Ingredients: 1½ cups fine bread crumbs; 1 egg; 1 cup sweet milk; 1 cup molasses; 1 cup raisins; ½ cup cornmeal; 1½ cups graham flour; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon baking soda

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Steamed Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Combine fine bread crumbs, egg, sweet milk, molasses, raisins, cornmeal, graham flour, salt, and baking soda in a bowl and mix well until all ingredients are combined.
Pour the mixture into baking powder cans.

Steam

Steam for 3 hours.

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,577 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour 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

Baking soda: Reacts with the molasses and milk to lift and lighten the dense batter.
Molasses: Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, sweet flavor.
Graham flour: Provides the main structure and a coarse, hearty texture.
Egg: Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets.
Fine bread crumbs: Add body and help the batter hold together while steaming.

“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.