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Baked Beans, Brown Bread, Pudding

A dish of baked beans served with brown bread and pudding.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Baked Beans, Brown Bread, Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans overnight in water.

  2. Drain and rinse the beans, then place them in a pot with fresh water and salt.

  3. Simmer the beans until tender, about 1-2 hours.

Make the sauce and bake the beans

  1. In a separate bowl, mix brown sugar, mustard, molasses, and chopped onion.

  2. Combine the bean mixture with the sugar mixture and place in a baking dish.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2-3 hours.

Make and bake the brown bread

  1. For the brown bread, mix flour, baking powder, milk, butter, sugar, and egg.

  2. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30-40 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve the baked beans with slices of brown bread and pudding.

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. Beans + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried beans
Provide the main body and starch that become tender during soaking and simmering.
Molasses
Adds dark sweetness, moisture and a deep flavour to the beans.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the sauce caramelise and thicken during baking.
Bread flour
Provides the structure that sets the brown bread as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the brown bread rises and becomes light.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness to the brown bread.

The step that matters

Simmer the beans until fully tender. Dried beans must be fully softened before baking, because the starches in them do not finish gelatinising in the oven's dry heat, and undercooked beans stay firm and chalky.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, sugar, mustard, molasses, bread, flour, milk):

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Arrowrootfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, sugar, mustard, molasses, bread, flour, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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