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Bread

Prison Mission Brown Bread

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

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

Prison Mission 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. In a large bowl, combine sour milk, white flour, cornmeal, salt, Graham flour, baking soda, and molasses. Mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a 2-quart basin.

Cook

  1. Steam for 2 hours.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

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. Milk + flourtop 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. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to produce gas that lifts the bread.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to leaven the bread without yeast.
White flour
Provides gluten-based structure to hold the loaf together.
Graham flour
Adds coarse bran and wheat flavour, giving a denser, heartier crumb.
Cornmeal
Adds texture and a grainy crumb to the loaf.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deep brown colour.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into a 2-quart basin. The batter must fill the basin with room to rise, because the baking soda starts releasing gas as soon as it meets the acidic sour milk, so the batter should be transferred and cooked promptly.

“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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