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Bread

Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with Graham flour, all-purpose flour, cornmeal, molasses, sweet milk, salt, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Brown Bread

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 ↓

Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the Graham flour, all-purpose flour, and yellow cornmeal.

  2. Stir in the molasses until well combined.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the sweet milk and add it to the mixture. Mix until smooth.

Steam

  1. Pour the batter into a greased steaming mold.

  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. 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

Graham flour
Provides a coarse, nutty texture and body to the bread.
All-purpose flour
Gives the batter structure so the loaf holds its shape.
Yellow cornmeal
Adds a grainy texture and a mild corn flavor.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the loaf.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lighten the batter and help it rise.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the sweet milk and add it to the mixture. Baking soda needs an acid to react and produce gas. Dissolving it fully before mixing spreads it evenly, so the bread rises uniformly rather than leaving pockets or dense patches.

“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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