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Steamed Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with sweet milk, cornmeal, flour, molasses, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour 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 ↓

Steamed 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.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine sweet milk, cornmeal, flour, molasses, baking soda, and salt. Mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased steaming mold.

Steam and dry

  1. Steam for 2½ hours.

  2. After steaming, place the bread in a 350°F (175°C) oven for a short time to dry.

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. Milk + flourtop 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).

Milk and flour 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

Cornmeal
Provides the main body and coarse, crumbly texture of the bread.
Flour
Adds structure so the bread holds together after steaming.
Sweet milk
Supplies the liquid that hydrates the cornmeal and flour into a batter.
New orleans molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the bread.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to lighten the batter and help it rise.

The step that matters

Steam for the full time. Cornmeal and flour need prolonged moist heat to fully set and cook through. Cutting the steaming short leaves the bread dense and gummy in the centre.

“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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