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Bread

Corn-meal and Rye Bread

A yeast‑leavened bread made with cornmeal, rye flour, molasses, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and rye work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 182 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Corn-meal and Rye Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift the cornmeal and rye flour into a deep bowl and mix them together with the salt.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the molasses with ½ pint of warm water, then stir in the yeast.

  3. Pour the yeast mixture into a well in the center of the flour mixture and stir in enough flour to make a thick batter.

  4. Sprinkle the top with rye flour, cover with a cloth, and let it rise in a warm place for 3‑4 hours until cracked on the surface.

  5. Gradually pour about 1 pint of warm water into the batter, mixing until it forms a round mass.

Knead and rise

  1. Sprinkle with rye flour, flour your hands, and knead the dough for 30 minutes until it no longer sticks to your hands.

  2. Cover and let it rise again until light and cracked on the surface.

Bake and cool

  1. Grease a deep tin or iron pan, place the dough inside, and bake for about 2 hours.

  2. Once baked, wrap the bread in a clean, damp towel and stand it on end to cool.

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. Corn + ryetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together182 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 loaf and gives it a coarse, crumbly texture.
Rye flour
Provides gluten-building structure so the dough can hold its shape and rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and moisture, and feeds the yeast while it ferments.
Fresh yeast
Ferments the dough, producing gas that makes it rise and become light.

The step that matters

Rising until cracked on the surface. The dough must rise fully before baking, since yeast gas is what lightens the loaf. Under-proofed dough stays dense, while over-proofed dough can collapse in the oven.

“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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