Name: Brown-bread, No. 5
Ingredients: 1 cup rye meal; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 cup all-purpose flour; ½ cup molasses; 1 cup milk

Why it works: Rye and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,320 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Brown-bread, No. 5

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dry ingredients

Sift the rye meal thoroughly, then sift the salt with it.
Sift the baking soda twice with the flour.

Make the batter

Add the molasses and stir in the milk gradually.
Mix all ingredients well together.

Steam and serve

Pour the mixture into a brown bread tin and 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.

Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,320 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together918 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,429 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together804 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

Rye meal: Gives the bread its dense, earthy body and characteristic flavour.
All-purpose flour: Provides gluten-based structure that holds the loaf together.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture, and reacts with the baking soda.
Milk: Hydrates the flours so the batter forms a moist, cohesive mixture.