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Steamed Brown Bread

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 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.

Prepare

  1. Mix 1 teaspoon of baking soda with molasses.

  2. Mix 1 teaspoon of baking soda with sweet milk.

Mix and steam

  1. In a bowl, combine raisins with white flour, then add cornmeal, salt, molasses, and sweet milk.

  2. Mix well and pour the batter into buttered tins.

  3. Steam for four hours, then finish in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk and molasses to release gas, lifting the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda, and it adds moisture to the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark color to the bread.
Cornmeal
Gives the bread a coarse, crumbly texture and structure.
Graham flour
Adds body and a nutty, wholesome flavor to the batter.

The step that matters

Pouring the batter into the tins. Baking soda reacts with the acid in the sour milk and molasses as soon as they are combined, releasing gas that lifts the batter. Once mixed, the batter should go into the tins promptly so that the gas is trapped in the batter rather than lost.

“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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