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Bread

Eastern Brown Bread

A steamed and baked bread made with rye or Graham flour, Indian meal, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and milk work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 918 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Eastern Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Combine rye or Graham flour, Indian meal, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, and cold water in a large bowl.

  2. Place the mixture over a pot of cold water on the stove.

Steam and brown

  1. Bring the water to a boil and steam the bread for 4 hours.

  2. After steaming, transfer the bread to a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) to brown.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + milktop 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 or graham flour
Provides the main structure and body of the loaf.
Indian meal
Adds coarse texture and helps the loaf hold its crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and dark color to the crumb.
Sour milk
Supplies moisture and acidity that react with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to lift the bread.

The step that matters

Steaming the batter. The bread is cooked through by steam over a long period, so the pot must keep boiling steadily. If the water runs low or the heat drops, the loaf may turn out dense or undercooked in the center.

“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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