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Steamed Corn or Graham Bread

A steamed bread made from cornmeal, graham flour, sour milk, molasses, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Steamed Corn or Graham Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

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

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased steaming mold.

Steam

  1. Steam for 2.5 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 + 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

Cornmeal
Provides the main body and coarse, crumbly texture of the bread.
Graham flour
Adds structure and a nutty, wholesome flavor to the batter.
Sour milk
Supplies moisture and acid that reacts with the baking soda to help the bread rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, depth of flavor, and a darker color with moisture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to release gas that lifts the batter.

The step that matters

Pour the batter promptly. Baking soda reacts with the acid in sour milk as soon as they meet, releasing gas that lifts the batter. Waiting before pouring lets that gas escape, so the cornbread rises less in the steamer.

“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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