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Indian Bread

A yeast‑leavened cornmeal bread sweetened with molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Indian 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 dough

  1. Scald the corn meal with boiling water and let it cool.

  2. Add molasses, salt, butter or lard (if using), and yeast to the corn meal.

  3. Mix in enough flour to form a stiff dough.

  4. Knead the dough well and set it aside to rise.

Shape and bake

  1. In the morning, shape the dough into pans and let it rise again before baking.

  2. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and bake.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Corn meal
Forms the bulk of the dough and gives the bread its coarse, hearty texture.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and deep flavour, and helps the crust brown.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become lighter.
Flour
Adds gluten-forming protein that gives the stiff dough enough structure to hold its shape.

The step that matters

Scalding the corn meal. Pouring boiling water over corn meal softens its starch and hydrates the grains so the dough holds together and the bread bakes up moist rather than gritty.

“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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