Why it works: Rye and milk work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 918 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓
Brown Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the batter
Dissolve the baking soda in the molasses.
Combine the Indian meal, rye meal, sweet milk, and salt in a bowl.
Add the dissolved soda and molasses to the mixture.
Cook
Pour the batter into a tin pudding dish.
Boil for 4 hours.
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.
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Rye + milktop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together918 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together804 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,243 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Indian meal
- Provides the main body and structure of the bread.
- Rye meal
- Adds an earthy flavour and a denser, heavier crumb.
- Sweet milk
- Hydrates the meals and adds moisture and softness.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, moisture and dark colour, and its acidity reacts with the soda.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the molasses' acid to release gas that lightens the batter.
The step that matters
Add the dissolved soda and molasses to the mixture. Baking soda reacts with the acid in molasses to release carbon dioxide, which lifts the batter. Stirring it in evenly spreads the gas through the batter so the bread rises uniformly rather than in pockets.
“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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