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New-england Brown-bread

A steamed and baked rye and cornmeal bread flavored with molasses and boiled squash.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

New-england Brown-bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift together the rye flour and cornmeal.

  2. Add salt, molasses, boiled squash, and baking soda dissolved in a little cold water.

  3. Mix in enough sour milk to create a pourable batter.

Steam and bake

  1. Pour the batter into a buttered tin pan or mold.

  2. Steam the batter for 3 hours.

  3. Bake for an additional 2 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Rye flour
Provides the structure and the dark, earthy flavor of the loaf.
Cornmeal
Gives the bread a coarse, crumbly texture and a grainy body.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and the deep brown color.
Boiled squash
Adds moisture and softness to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acidity to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Sour milk
Supplies acidity that activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.

The step that matters

Mix in enough sour milk to create a pourable batter. The sour milk must be acidic enough to react with the baking soda for lift. Too little liquid leaves the batter stiff and dense, while too much thins it so it does not hold its shape during the long steam.

“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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