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Bread

Bran Bread

A loaf made with flour, bran, salt, sour milk or buttermilk, baking soda, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Bran Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, bran, and salt.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix the sour milk or buttermilk with the baking soda until dissolved.

  4. Add the molasses to the milk mixture and stir well.

Mix and bake

  1. Combine the wet and dry ingredients until just mixed.

  2. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

  3. Bake for 1.5 hours or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + molassestop 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the gluten and starch that give the loaf its structure.
Bran
Adds fiber-rich bulk and a coarse, hearty texture to the crumb.
Sour milk or buttermilk
Supplies moisture and acidity that react with the baking soda to lift the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic milk to produce carbon dioxide, causing the loaf to rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep, dark color and flavor.

The step that matters

Combine the wet and dry ingredients until just mixed. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour and makes the bread tough and dense, while the baking soda reaction starts as soon as the acidic milk meets it, so the batter should go into the pan promptly.

“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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