Name: Brown Bread
Ingredients: 4 cups sour milk; 4 cups cornmeal; 2 cups rye meal; ½ cup New Orleans molasses; soda (to sweeten milk)

Why it works: Milk and rye work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 918 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Mix and bake

In a large bowl, combine sour milk, cornmeal, rye meal, and molasses.
Add soda to sweeten the milk.
Pour the mixture into a deep dish.
Bake for 2 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.

Milk + ryetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together918 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together804 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,243 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour milk: Provides the moisture that hydrates the cornmeal and rye and gives a tangy base.
Cornmeal: Forms the main body and crumb of the bread.
Rye meal: Adds structure and a deeper, earthy flavor to the bread.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the bread.

“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.