Why it works: Milk and wheat 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
In a bowl, mix together the eggs, butter, and sugar.
Add the molasses and sour milk to the mixture.
Stir the baking soda into the sour milk before adding it to the bowl.
Add the salt, wheat flour, and cornmeal to form a thick batter.
Steam and serve
Pour the batter into a greased steaming dish and steam for 3 hours.
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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Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,418 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,225 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,373 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lightens the bread.
- Sour milk
- Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tang to the crumb.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness.
- Molasses
- Adds moisture, dark colour and deep sweetness.
- Cornmeal
- Gives the bread a coarser, slightly grainy texture.
The step that matters
Stir the baking soda into the sour milk first. Baking soda releases gas most effectively when it reacts with an acid such as sour milk. Adding it directly to the sour milk before mixing lets that reaction start early, so the batter rises well during steaming.
“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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