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Bread

Brown Raisin Bread

A steamed raisin bread made with whole wheat, rye, and Indian meal, molasses, butter, and raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Brown Raisin Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sift together the whole wheat flour, rye flour, and Indian meal.

  2. In a separate bowl, sift the baking soda and salt with part of the flour.

  3. In another bowl, mix the molasses, water, melted butter, and raisins.

Mix and steam

  1. Combine the wet and dry ingredients and beat thoroughly.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold.

  3. Steam for 4 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.

  1. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Wheat + ryetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Flour + ryetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Rye + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acid to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the bread.
Rye flour
Adds flavor and a denser crumb with less gluten structure than wheat flour.
Whole wheat flour
Provides the main structure and a nutty flavor.
Indian meal
Adds coarse texture and a grainy body to the loaf.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into a buttered mold.. The batter is loose and rises as the baking soda reacts, so the mold should be only partly filled and buttered well so the bread releases cleanly after steaming.

“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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