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 ↓
New England Brown Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the batter
In a large bowl, combine sour milk, molasses, baking soda, and salt.
Gradually stir in flour and cornmeal until well mixed.
Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.
Steam and cool
Steam the bread for 5 hours.
Allow to cool before slicing.
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.
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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 + 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
- Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the bread rise.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, moisture, and the dark color and rich flavor of the loaf.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides structure that holds the loaf together as it sets.
- Cornmeal
- Gives the bread its coarse, hearty texture and body.
The step that matters
Steam the bread for the full 5 hours. Gentle, moist heat sets the batter slowly into a tender loaf. Cutting the steaming short leaves the centre gummy and dense, because the starches and proteins have not fully set.
“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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