Name: Steamed Brown Bread
Ingredients: 1 cup cornmeal; 1 cup rye flour; 1 cup whole wheat flour; ½ cup molasses; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 pint sour milk; salt to taste; warm water as needed

Why it works: Rye and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Steamed Brown Bread

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.

Prepare

In a large bowl, combine cornmeal, rye flour, whole wheat flour, molasses, baking soda, sour milk, and salt.
Mix until well combined, adding warm water to achieve a pourable consistency.

Steam and bake

Pour the mixture into a covered lard pail.
Place the lard pail into a larger pot filled two-thirds with boiling water.
Cover the larger pot and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 3 to 4 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 + wheattop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together404 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,418 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,320 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together918 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal: Gives the bread its coarse, crumbly body and sturdy structure.
Rye flour: Adds a dense, moist crumb and a deep, earthy flavor.
Whole wheat flour: Contributes structure and a nutty flavor to the loaf.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the bread.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas, lifting the batter.
Sour milk: Its acidity activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.

The step that matters

Keeping the pail sealed and the water boiling. Steaming in a covered pail keeps the loaf moist and lets it rise without drying. If the lid leaks or the water boils low, the bread can turn out dry or dense.

“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.

Wheat Bread65 recipes

Whole Wheat Bread55 recipes

Barley Wheat Bread6 recipes

Cornbread345 recipes

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Steamed Brown Bread