Skip to main content
Bread

Sour Milk Brown Bread

A steamed and baked bread made with cornmeal, graham flour, molasses, and sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Sour Milk Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Mix the batter

  1. Mix cornmeal and graham flour together.

  2. Mash baking soda and salt before measuring, then sift and mix them thoroughly with the flour.

  3. Add sour milk and molasses, and beat well.

  4. If the mixture is not moist enough to pour, add a little warm water.

Steam and finish

  1. Pour batter into well-greased molds or pails, filling them only two-thirds full, and cover tightly with a greased lid.

  2. Steam for three hours, keeping the water boiling and replenishing it with boiling water to maintain the level.

  3. Remove the cover and place the mold in a 400°F (200°C) oven for fifteen minutes to dry the 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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Flour and milk 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
Provides the main body and the coarse, crumbly texture of the cornbread.
Graham flour
Adds gluten-based structure and a nutty, hearty flavor to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lightens the bread.
Sour milk
Supplies moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep color and flavor to the bread.

The step that matters

Keep the steaming water boiling. Steam is what cooks and sets this dense batter. If the water drops below boiling and is not replenished with boiling water, the cornbread cooks unevenly and can turn heavy and gummy.

“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.

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes