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Pumpkin Bread

A steamed bread made with buttermilk, molasses, wheat flour, cornmeal, pumpkin, eggs, butter, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Pumpkin Bread

Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Pumpkin 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. In a large bowl, mix together buttermilk, molasses, wheat flour, butter, cornmeal, eggs, stewed pumpkin, and baking soda until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased steaming pan.

Steam and brown

  1. Steam for 2½ hours.

  2. After steaming, brown the bread in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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.

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.

  1. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Wheat + pumpkintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together134 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Buttermilk + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with baking soda to lift the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture to the crumb.
Wheat flour
Provides gluten-based structure to hold the bread together.
Cornmeal
Gives a coarser, crumbly texture and a grainy bite.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk and molasses to produce rise.

The step that matters

Steam for the full 2½ hours. Steaming gently cooks the dense, moist batter through without drying it. Cutting the time short can leave the centre underset and gummy.

Swap the pumpkin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (buttermilk, molasses, wheat, flour, butter, egg):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against buttermilk, molasses, wheat, flour, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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