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Bread

Entire Wheat Brown Bread

A steamed whole wheat bread with molasses, raisins, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Entire Wheat Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the entire wheat flour, molasses, milk, chopped raisins, and salt.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in hot water and add it to the mixture.

  3. Stir until well combined.

Steam

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

  2. Steam for 3 to 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Wheat + raisintop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together163 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Entire wheat flour
Provides the main structure of the loaf and its hearty, nutty texture.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep color and flavor to the bread.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and liquid to produce gas that lifts and lightens the batter.
Raisins
Add pockets of chewy sweetness and moisture throughout the loaf.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in hot water before adding it. Baking soda needs to be fully dissolved so it spreads evenly through the batter. Unevenly distributed soda can leave pockets that are bitter or soapy and uneven rising.

“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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