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Bread

Steamed Graham Bread

A steamed bread made with sour milk, molasses, Graham flour, white flour, cornmeal, salt, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Steamed Graham 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 sour milk, molasses, Graham flour, white flour, corn meal, salt, and baking soda, and mix until well combined.

  2. Fill quart molds half full with the batter.

Steam and brown

  1. Cover the molds and steam for 3 hours.

  2. After steaming, remove the molds and place them in a 350°F (175°C) oven to brown lightly.

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 + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. 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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift and lighten the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that makes the bread rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark color to the bread.
Graham flour
Provides a coarse, hearty structure and nutty flavor from the whole-wheat bran and germ.
White flour
Supplies gluten to give the bread structure and a tender crumb.
Corn meal
Adds a grainy texture and body to the crumb.

The step that matters

Filling the molds half full. The batter rises considerably while steaming, so overfilling can cause it to spill out or become dense. Leaving room gives the leavening gas space to expand and produce a light loaf.

“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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