Why it works: Milk and flour 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
In a large bowl, combine sour milk, sweet milk, and molasses.
Add graham flour, white flour, egg, baking soda, and salt. Mix until well combined.
Steam and serve
Pour the batter into a tin can, filling it only halfway.
Steam the bread for three hours.
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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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,429 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,243 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Milk and flour 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
- Sour milk
- Its acidity reacts with baking soda so the bread rises and becomes tender.
- New orleans molasses
- Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture, and gives the bread its characteristic flavour.
- Graham flour
- Adds coarse bran and wholegrain texture and a nutty flavour to the bread.
- White flour
- Provides the gluten structure that holds the bread together as it steams.
- Egg
- Binds the batter and adds structure and richness.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that leavens the bread.
The step that matters
Filling the tin only halfway. Batter rises considerably as the baking soda releases gas and the bread steams. Filling the tin only halfway leaves room for this expansion, so the batter does not overflow or become 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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