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Bread

Steamed Bread

A moist steamed bread made with graham flour, cornmeal, molasses, milk, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grease the inside of a steamer thoroughly.

  2. Measure the graham flour, cornmeal, baking soda, and salt into a strainer over a bowl and sift.

  3. In a separate saucer, measure the molasses and milk.

Make the batter

  1. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and beat until smooth.

  2. Pour the mixture into the greased steamer and cover it.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the steamer in a saucepan with boiling water, ensuring the water reaches halfway up the steamer.

  2. Cover the saucepan tightly and cook for 25 minutes.

  3. Remove the steamer and turn out the bread.

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. Flour + molassestop 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

Graham flour
Provides the bulk and structure of the bread, with a nutty, hearty flavor.
Cornmeal
Adds body and a coarse, crumbly texture to the steamed loaf.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and milk to produce gas that lightens the bread.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the batter.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and cornmeal so the batter becomes a pourable, moist mixture.

The step that matters

Keep the water level below the steamer and the pan tightly covered. The bread cooks by gentle steam rather than boiling liquid. If water splashes into the steamer or the lid lets steam escape, the texture turns wet and the loaf may cook unevenly, so the seal and water level matter.

“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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