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Bread

Boiled Brown Bread

A boiled bread made with Indian meal, lye meal, flour, sweet and sour milk, soda, molasses, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Boiled Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, combine Indian meal, lye meal, flour, sweet milk, sour milk, soda, molasses, and salt, and mix well until combined.

  2. Cover and boil for 3 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

Indian meal
Forms the main body of the bread and gives it its coarse, hearty texture.
Lye meal
Adds more cornmeal bulk, giving the bread a dense, sturdy crumb.
Flour
Adds structure that helps the bread hold together during long cooking.
Sour milk
Reacts with the soda to lift the batter and adds moisture and a slight tang.
Soda
Produces gas when it meets the acid in sour milk, helping the bread rise and lighten.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep brown color to the bread.

The step that matters

Cover and boil for 3 hours. A covered pot holds in steam and keeps the liquid at a steady simmer, so the bread cooks through and stays moist. If the pot boils dry or the heat is too fierce, the bread can scorch or turn out dense.

“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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