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Bread

Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with cornmeal, brown flour, molasses, salt, baking soda, and warm water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Brown Bread

Why it works: Flour and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,429 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine cornmeal, brown flour, molasses, salt, and baking soda.

  2. Gradually add warm water and mix until well combined.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a steamer.

  2. Steam for 2½ 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 + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 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

Cornmeal
Provides the main body and structure of the bread.
Brown flour
Adds gluten-based structure and a denser, heartier crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep, dark flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lift and lighten the batter.

The step that matters

Steam for 2½ hours. Steam must stay steady and the water must not run dry, because the bread sets gradually in gentle, moist heat. Uneven or insufficient steam can leave the center gummy or underbaked.

“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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