Name: Mrs. Furlong’s Brown Bread
Ingredients: 3 cups corn meal; 1 cup flour; 1 cup syrup; 1 cup sour milk; 2 cups sweet milk; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 teaspoon salt

Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Mrs. Furlong’s Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a large bowl, combine corn meal, flour, syrup, sour milk, sweet milk, baking soda, and salt. Mix until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a greased steaming pan.

Steam

Steam for four 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.

Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,165 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,540 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Corn + syruptop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,678 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and milk 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

Corn meal: Forms the bulk of the crumb and gives the cornbread its characteristic texture and flavor.
Flour: Adds gluten-forming structure so the steamed loaf holds together.
Syrup: Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crumb stay soft.
Sour milk: Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce carbon dioxide, causing the batter to rise.

“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.