Name: Oneida Rye and Indian Bread
Ingredients: 1½ cups water; 1 yeast cake; 4½ pints corn meal; 1 quart water; 1 pint molasses; 1 pint rye meal; 1 pint bread crumbs; 1 teaspoon baking soda; coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')

Why it works: Corn and rye work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 182 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Oneida Rye and Indian Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sponge

Soak the yeast cake in 1½ cups of water overnight to make a sponge.
Scald 1 quart of water with 1 pint of molasses and stir in 4½ pints of corn meal until cool.
Add the cooled mixture to the sponge along with 1 pint of rye meal, 1 pint of soaked and mashed bread crumbs, and 1 teaspoon of baking soda.
Mix thoroughly and set aside to rise.

Shape and bake

Once the dough is light, divide it into 2 loaves and place in tins to rise again.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 3 hours.

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.

Corn + ryetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together182 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Rye + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together59 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Corn + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together547 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Molasses + ryetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together804 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Corn + molassestop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together644 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Yeast cake: Ferments the sponge so the dough rises and becomes light.
Corn meal: Forms the bulk of the loaf, giving it its dense, crumbly structure.
Rye meal: Adds its own flavour and a denser crumb than wheat flour would give.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture to the loaf.
Bread crumbs: Add moisture and body to the dough.
Baking soda: Reacts with the molasses's acidity to give extra lift and help browning.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until light before dividing it into loaves. Yeast needs time to produce gas and build structure in the sponge; dividing or baking an under-risen dough gives a dense, heavy loaf.

“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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Oneida Rye and Indian Bread