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Bread

Steamed Graham Bread

A steamed bread made with graham flour, cornmeal, nut milk, malt extract, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Steamed Graham Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the nut milk, salt, and malt extract.

  2. In another bowl, combine the cornmeal and graham flour, then stir into the liquid mixture.

  3. Pour the batter into basins or baking powder cans.

Steam and brown

  1. Steam for 2.5 hours.

  2. After steaming, brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 minutes.

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. Milk + malttop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together101 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  3. Flour + malttop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Graham flour
Provides the main structure and a hearty, wholesome body to the bread.
Cornmeal
Adds a coarse, slightly crumbly texture and corn flavor to the loaf.
Nut milk
Supplies the liquid that hydrates the flours and keeps the crumb moist.
Malt extract
Adds sweetness and a malty flavor, and helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Steam for the full 2.5 hours. Steam cooks the batter gently with moist heat, setting its structure evenly throughout. Cutting the steaming short leaves the centre under-set and dense, and the later browning cannot fix it.

“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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