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Bread

Brown Bread

A sweet bread made with brown flour, cornmeal, molasses, sweet milk, and baking powder, optionally using sour milk and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Brown Bread

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 ↓

Brown Bread

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 brown flour and cornmeal.

  2. Add molasses and sweet milk, mixing well.

  3. If using sour milk, add it along with baking soda instead of baking powder.

Steam and dry

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased loaf pan.

  2. Steam for 4 hours.

  3. After steaming, dry the bread in a 350°F (175°C) oven until firm.

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. 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. 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

Brown flour
Provides the main structure and body of the loaf.
Cornmeal
Adds a coarse, grainy texture and body to the crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the bread.
Baking powder
Releases gas to lift the batter as it heats.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity of sour milk to lift the batter.

The step that matters

Steaming for the full time. Steam keeps the batter moist while the starches set and the leavening works. Stopping early leaves a dense, gummy crumb, so the pan must stay covered and the water must keep simmering throughout.

“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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