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Bread

Brown Bread

A sweet loaf made with buttermilk, sweet milk, brown sugar, cornmeal, all-purpose flour, graham flour, molasses, raisins, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Brown Bread

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine buttermilk, sweet milk, brown sugar, cornmeal, all-purpose flour, graham flour, molasses, salt, and floured raisins.

  2. Beat the mixture well until smooth.

  3. Stir in the dissolved baking soda.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

Bake

  1. Cover and bake for 1.5 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Buttermilk + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together526 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

Buttermilk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas, helping the loaf rise and stay tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk and molasses to release carbon dioxide, leavening the batter.
Graham flour
Coarse whole-wheat flour that gives the loaf its hearty texture and brown color.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep brown color with a robust flavor.
Cornmeal
Adds body and a slightly grainy texture to the crumb.
Raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the loaf.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda fully before stirring it in. Baking soda must be dissolved and evenly distributed so it reacts with the acidic batter and leavens the loaf uniformly. Clumps can leave dense spots or bitter pockets.

“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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