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Rye Bread

A moist rye bread made with molasses, sour milk, and baking soda, baked after steaming.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Rye 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.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the rye meal, cornmeal, flour, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in 2 tablespoons of boiling water.

  3. Add the dissolved soda and sour milk to the molasses and stir well.

  4. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.

  5. Beat the egg and add it to the mixture, stirring until well combined.

  6. Pour the batter into a well-buttered 2-quart tin pan.

Steam and bake

  1. Steam the bread for 2 hours, then bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 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. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

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

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 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

Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark color and deep flavor to the bread.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter and adds moisture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that makes the bread rise.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set into a cohesive crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides structure so the batter holds its shape as it cooks.
Cornmeal
Gives the bread a coarse, slightly crumbly texture.

The step that matters

Steam the bread for 2 hours. Steaming keeps the moist, leavened batter from drying out while it sets, so the bread stays tender. Steam needs to stay sealed and the water must not boil dry, or the loaf can dry out and set unevenly.

“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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