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
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.
Make the batter
Combine cornmeal and flour in a bowl.
Pour boiling water over the mixture and stir well.
Add molasses, sour milk, baking soda, and salt; mix thoroughly.
Transfer the batter to a greased steaming dish.
Steam and brown
Steam for 2 hours.
After steaming, brown lightly in a 350°F (175°C) oven.
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.
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,429 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Cornmeal
- Provides the main body and coarse, grainy structure of the bread.
- All-purpose flour
- Adds gluten-forming proteins that help hold the crumb together.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture to the crumb.
- Sour milk
- Its acidity reacts with baking soda to help the bread rise and tenderise the crumb.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lightens the batter.
The step that matters
Steam for 2 hours. Steaming keeps the batter moist and cooks it through gently. Lifting the lid or letting the steam drop can leave the centre gummy or dense, so the pot must stay covered and the water must keep simmering.
“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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