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Drink

Bran Coffee

A roasted bran beverage made with wheat bran, oat flakes, corn meal, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 465 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Bran Coffee

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Mix the wheat bran, oat flakes, and corn meal together.

  2. Stir in the molasses and mix with your hands to avoid lumps.

Roast

  1. Place the mixture in a drip pan and put it in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Stir every 5 to 10 minutes for 1½ to 2 hours until it is a nice brown. Be careful not to burn it.

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. Wheat + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Wheat + molassestop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together702 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Corn + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together644 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Wheat bran
Forms the bulk of the mixture and carries the roasted flavour.
Oat flakes
Add body and a toasty, nutty flavour as they brown.
Corn meal
Adds a gritty texture and helps the mixture brown evenly.
Porto rico molasses
Adds sweetness and colour, and browns further in the oven.

The step that matters

Stirring during roasting. Stirring every 5 to 10 minutes spreads the heat so the bran browns evenly. Sugars in molasses darken quickly and can scorch at high heat, so the mixture must be watched closely to avoid burning.

“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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