Skip to main content
Main

Steamed Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with milk, Indian meal, rye meal, molasses, baking soda, and salt.

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

Why it works: Milk and rye work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 918 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Steamed Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the milk, Indian meal, rye meal, molasses, baking soda, and salt. Mix well until all ingredients are fully combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased steaming mold.

Steam

  1. Steam for 4 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 + ryetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

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

  2. Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Indian meal
Provides the main starch and body, setting the bread's crumb as it cooks.
Rye meal
Adds a denser texture and a deeper, earthy flavor to the bread.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the finished bread.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lift the batter and lighten the crumb.
Milk
Hydrates the meals so the batter forms a pourable, moist mixture.

The step that matters

Steam for 4 hours. Steaming gently and steadily cooks the batter through without drying it. Lifting the lid or letting the water run low can cause uneven cooking or a dense, gummy loaf.

“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