Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Brown Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Scald the corn meal with boiling milk or water.
When cool, add Graham flour, salt, brown sugar or molasses, yeast, and flour.
Mix with warm water until the mixture is stiff but can be stirred easily.
Steam and finish
Place the mixture in deep basins and steam for 2 hours.
Before baking, baste with sweet cream or milk for a soft crust.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Milk and flour 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
- Corn meal
- Forms the bulk of the bread and gives it its coarse, grainy structure.
- Yeast
- Produces gas that leavens the batter so it rises and becomes light.
- Graham flour
- Adds gluten-forming protein and a nutty, wholesome flavor and texture.
- Brown sugar or molasses
- Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crust brown and deepen in color.
- Flour
- Adds gluten structure that helps hold the batter together as it rises.
The step that matters
Mix with warm water until stiff but stirrable. The batter must be stiff enough to hold its shape in the basins yet loose enough to stir. Too much water makes it slack and dense, while too little leaves it dry and crumbly.
“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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