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Bread

Brown Bread

A steamed and baked bread made with rye, Indian, and wheat flours, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, egg, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Brown Bread

Why it works: Rye and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

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.

Mix the batter

  1. Mix the rye flour, Indian flour, wheat flour, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in 2 tablespoons of boiling water.

  3. Add the dissolved soda and sour milk to the molasses and stir well.

  4. Combine this mixture with the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.

  5. Beat the egg and add it to the mixture, stirring until well combined.

  6. Pour the batter into a well-greased 2-quart tin pan.

Steam and bake

  1. Steam the bread for 4 hours.

  2. After steaming, bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Rye + wheattop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rye flour
Provides structure and a dense, hearty crumb with its own deep flavor.
Indian flour
Adds a coarse, grainy texture and body to the crumb.
Wheat flour
Builds the main structure that holds the loaf together.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and dark color to the bread.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda and adds tang and moisture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to release gas that lifts the batter.

The step that matters

Combining the soda and sour milk. Baking soda reacts with the acid in the sour milk and molasses as soon as they meet, releasing carbon dioxide that lifts the batter. Getting the batter into the pan and into the steam without long delay keeps that lift working.

“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 brown bread recipes

Boston 349Steamed 107Pudding 51New England 20Ice Cream 14Biscuits 11 See all 420 →

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