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Bread

New England Brown Bread

A yeast bread made with equal parts Indian meal and rye flour, molasses, and lukewarm water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,320 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

New England Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Scald the Indian meal and let it cool until lukewarm.

  2. Add the rye flour and enough lukewarm water to form a dough slightly softer than for wheat bread.

  3. Stir in the yeast and molasses.

  4. Let the dough rise.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until well cooked.

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. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 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. Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Indian meal
Scalding softens the cornmeal, giving the loaf a moist, tender crumb.
Rye flour
Provides the structure and dense, earthy character typical of rye bread.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, so the dough rises and becomes lighter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and a rich flavour, and feeds the yeast.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce gas. Under-proofed dough bakes up dense, while the moist, heavy grains of rye and cornmeal make the loaf rise more slowly than wheat dough.

“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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