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Bread

Rye Bread

A steamed rye bread made with rye meal, corn meal, sour milk, molasses, salt, baking soda, and warm water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and corn work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 182 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Rye Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. Combine rye meal, corn meal, sour milk, molasses, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Dissolve baking soda in a little warm water and add it to the mixture.

  3. Stir well to combine all ingredients.

Steam

  1. Pour the batter into a well-greased steaming dish.

  2. Steam for 4 hours.

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. Rye + corntop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together182 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rye meal
Gives the bread its characteristic earthy flavour and a dense, moist crumb.
Corn meal
Adds a coarser texture and body, keeping the loaf from being fully smooth.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda and adds tang and moisture to the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark colour to the finished bread.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to release gas that helps the bread rise.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda and add it to the mixture. Baking soda reacts with the acid in the sour milk as soon as it meets the batter, releasing gas that lifts the bread. Adding it promptly and moving the batter straight into the steamer keeps that rise from being lost before steaming sets the structure.

“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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