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Steamed Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with molasses, Graham flour, white flour, cornmeal, baking soda, salt, and milk.

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

Steamed Brown 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.

Prepare

  1. Grease three one-pound baking tins well.

  2. In a bowl, mix molasses, Graham flour, white flour, cornmeal, baking soda, salt, and milk until combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into the prepared tins.

Steam and dry

  1. Steam for 3 hours.

  2. After steaming, dry the bread in a 350°F (175°C) oven for a few minutes before serving.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + milktop 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

Molasses
Adds sweetness and moisture, and reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter.
Graham flour
Provides the bulk and structure of the bread, with a coarse, hearty texture.
Cornmeal
Gives body and a grainy texture that holds the loaf together as it steams.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to release gas, helping the bread rise.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flours and softens the crumb.

The step that matters

Steam for the full 3 hours. Steaming cooks the batter gently with moist heat, setting the starches and proteins without drying the crumb. Stopping early leaves the centre wet and dense.

“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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