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Bread

Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with graham flour, cornmeal, wheat flour, molasses, sour milk, coffee or water, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Brown Bread

Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Mix the graham flour, cornmeal, and wheat flour together in a bowl.

  2. In another bowl, combine the molasses, sour milk, cold coffee or water, and dissolved baking soda.

  3. Add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture and mix well.

  4. Stir in the baking powder, salt, and soaked bread crumbs.

Steam and dry

  1. Pour the batter into well-greased tin forms and cover tightly.

  2. Place the forms in boiling water and steam for 4 hours.

  3. Transfer to an oven for a few minutes to dry.

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.

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.

  1. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Wheat + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 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

Graham flour
Provides the coarse, hearty body that gives brown bread its structure.
Cornmeal
Adds grainy texture and helps give the loaf its crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the loaf.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda so the bread rises and stays tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that leavens the batter.
Dry bread crumbs
Soaked in liquid, they add moisture and a softer, tender texture.

The step that matters

Steaming the batter. The tins must be tightly covered and the water kept boiling so steam cooks the batter evenly and the loaf stays moist. If the seal leaks or the water boils dry, the bread can turn out dense or uneven.

“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.

More brown bread recipes

Boston 349Steamed 107Pudding 51New England 20Ice Cream 14Biscuits 11 See all 420 →

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