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Bread

Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with rye, Indian, Graham meal, bread crumbs, molasses, milk, baking soda, salt, and optional raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Brown Bread

Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine rye meal, Indian meal, Graham meal, bread crumbs, molasses, and milk in a bowl.

  2. Add baking soda, salt, and raisins if desired.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a brown bread tin.

  2. Steam 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.

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Rye + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Rye + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together59 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lightens the loaf.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture, and gives the bread its characteristic flavour.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the meals and forms the batter.
Rye meal
Contributes earthy flavour and a dense, moist crumb.
Indian meal
Gives body and a coarse, tender texture to the loaf.

The step that matters

Steam for 3 hours. Steaming keeps the loaf moist and cooks it through gently without a dry crust. The water in the pot must be kept topped up, because if it boils dry the bread will scorch or cook unevenly.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rye, bread, molasses, milk):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rye, bread, molasses, milk. 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.

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