Name: Brown Bread No. 2
Ingredients: 2 cups Indian meal; 2 cups rye meal; 1 cup flour; 1½ pints sweet milk; ⅔ cup molasses; 1 teaspoon baking soda; ¼ teaspoon salt

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 ↓

Brown Bread No. 2

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Mix the Indian meal, rye meal, flour, sweet milk, molasses, baking soda, and salt together.
Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

Bake and serve

Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for about 1 hour.
For a crust, bake for an additional 30 minutes.
Serve warm.

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.

Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,320 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together918 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,429 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together804 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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: Forms the main body of the bread, giving it its structure and grainy texture.
Rye meal: Adds a dense, earthy texture and flavor to the crumb.
Sweet milk: Provides moisture and hydrates the meals so the batter can set as it bakes.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the bread.
Baking soda: Reacts with the molasses's acidity to produce gas that helps the bread rise.

“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.