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Bread

Brown Bread

A sweet, ginger-flavored cornbread made with corn meal, graham flour, molasses, and sponge.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Brown Bread

Why it works: Corn and ginger work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 412 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Scald 1 quart of corn meal.

Mix and rise

  1. Mix all ingredients with tepid water until stiff.

  2. Let the mixture rise.

  3. Dip into pans and let rise again.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 2 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Corn + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together412 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 crumb and gives the cornbread its structure.
Graham flour
Adds gluten and a coarser, nuttier texture to the crumb.
Orleans molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a darker browning on the crust.
Sponge
Ferments during rising to lighten the dough and add flavour.

The step that matters

Let the mixture rise. The dough must rise fully before baking, because the yeast-driven sponge is what lightens the crumb. Underproofed dough bakes dense, while overproofed dough can collapse.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, flour, molasses):

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, flour, molasses. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More cornbread recipes

Steamed 78Rye 18Southern 15Molasses 14Indian 11Virginia 11 See all 732 →

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