Name: Brown Bread
Ingredients: 2 cups rye meal; 2 cups cornmeal (Indian meal); 1 cup molasses; 1 teaspoon salt; 1½ teaspoons baking powder; 1 quart milk (approximately)

Why it works: Rye and milk work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 918 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

In a large bowl, combine the rye meal, cornmeal, molasses, salt, and baking powder.
Gradually add milk until a stiff batter forms.

Bake

Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.
Bake in a preheated oven at 300°F (150°C) for 3½ 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together918 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together804 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,243 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rye meal: Gives the bread its dense, hearty body and a distinctive earthy flavor.
Cornmeal: Adds coarse texture and structure, so the loaf holds together without wheat flour.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark color as its sugars brown during baking.
Baking powder: Releases gas when moistened and heated, helping the dense batter rise somewhat.
Milk: Hydrates the meals so they form a batter and sets as the starches cook.

The step that matters

Baking low and slow. The batter is dense and thick, so a long, gentle bake at 300°F lets the center cook through and set without the outside burning. Molasses darkens quickly at high heat, so a low oven keeps the crust from scorching before the loaf is done.

“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.