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Brown-bread, No. 1

A steamed bread made with milk, baking soda, wheat flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Brown-bread, No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. If using sweet milk, add cream of tartar to it.

  2. Stir in the baking soda and gradually mix in the wheat flour.

Prepare the pan

  1. Thoroughly butter a brown-bread pan, including the cover.

Steam

  1. Pour the batter into the pan and steam for 3.5 hours.

  2. Ensure a good hot fire and do not move the pan while cooking.

  3. Boil water in an iron pot and place the brown-bread tin inside, ensuring the water is two-thirds up the tin.

  4. Cover the pot tightly to keep the steam in and replenish with boiling water only.

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 + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Milk
Supplies the liquid that hydrates the flour and forms the batter.
Cream of tartar
Acid that reacts with baking soda to help the bread rise, used with sweet milk.
Baking soda
Releases carbon dioxide when combined with acid, leavening the batter.
Wheat flour
Provides the starch and gluten structure that holds the bread together.

The step that matters

Keep the steam steady and the pan still. Steaming cooks the batter gently, and steady heat with constant steam lets it set evenly. Moving the pan or letting the water drop can disturb the rising batter and cool the pot, leaving the texture uneven.

“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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