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Bread

Brown Bread Recipe

A steamed brown bread made with Indian cornmeal, rye meal, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and milk work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 918 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Brown Bread Recipe

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.

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the Indian cornmeal, rye meal, and molasses.

  2. Stir in the sour milk until well mixed.

  3. Add the baking soda and salt, mixing thoroughly.

Steam and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased steaming pan.

  2. Steam for 4 hours, ensuring the water remains boiling.

  3. If desired, place in the oven at 350°F (175°C) to form a crust.

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. Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

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

  2. Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Indian cornmeal
Provides the main body and grainy structure of the bread.
Rye meal
Adds a denser texture and a deeper, earthy flavour to the bread.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and the dark brown colour.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter and keeps it moist.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that makes the bread rise.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling throughout steaming. Steam supplies the heat that sets the batter. If the water stops boiling, the temperature drops and the cornbread can turn out heavy and under-cooked in the centre.

“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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