Skip to main content
Main

Steamed Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with white flour, Graham flour, cornmeal, molasses, milk, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Steamed 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

  1. Combine white flour, Graham flour, cornmeal, baking soda, molasses, milk, and salt in a large bowl.

  2. Mix well.

  3. If using sweet milk, substitute baking powder for baking soda.

Steam and finish

  1. Pour the batter into a mold and steam for 4 hours.

  2. After steaming, place the bread in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 15 minutes.

  3. Serve warm with butter.

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 + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Graham flour
Gives the bread its hearty, coarse texture and nutty flavor.
Cornmeal
Adds body and a grainy texture to the crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a rich flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas, helping the bread rise.
Milk
Hydrates the flours and forms the batter, adding moisture and tenderness.

The step that matters

Steaming the batter. The bread is cooked by steam in a sealed mold for a long time. Keeping the mold covered and the water boiling steadily ensures even cooking and a moist, set crumb without a soggy or underbaked center.

“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.

You might also like

Molasses SauceMolasses Sauce32 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes