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Bread

Graham and Indian Bread

A steamed and baked bread made with Indian meal, Graham flour, sour milk, molasses, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Graham and Indian Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift together the Indian meal, Graham flour, and salt.

  2. Mix in the sour milk and molasses with the dissolved baking soda.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered brown-bread mold or a buttered tin pail.

Steam and bake

  1. Steam the bread for 2 hours in a covered saucepan with boiling water reaching two-thirds up the sides.

  2. After steaming, remove the cover and bake in a hot oven (400 °F / 200 °C) until a crust forms.

  3. Serve hot or cold.

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. Milk + molassestop 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

Indian meal
Provides the coarse body and structure of the bread.
Graham flour
Adds a nutty flavour and a denser, more rustic crumb.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to make the bread rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark colour to the crumb.

The step that matters

Steaming with the lid on and water at the right level. Steam keeps the bread moist while the baking soda and acid raise it. If the water boils dry or the lid lets steam escape, the loaf can turn dense or dry. Then the short hot-oven step forms the crust.

“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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