Name: Yermont Brown Bread
Ingredients: 2 cups sour milk; 2 cups sweet milk; 1 scant cup molasses; 3 cups Indian meal; 2 cups rye or wheat flour; 2 teaspoons baking soda; 1 teaspoon salt

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 ↓

Yermont Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Mix and steam

In a large bowl, combine sour milk, sweet milk, molasses, Indian meal, rye or wheat flour, baking soda, and salt.
Pour the mixture into a 2-quart basin.
Place the basin in a steamer and steam for 3 hours.

Bake

After steaming, bake for 30 minutes or until a light crust forms.

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.

Milk + ryetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together918 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Molasses + ryetop 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: Reacts with baking soda to produce gas, helping the bread rise and turn tender.
Indian meal: Cornmeal that gives the bread its body and coarse, crumbly texture.
Rye or wheat flour: Provides structure and gluten-based chew alongside the cornmeal.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark color and a deep, slightly bitter flavor.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic sour milk to leaven the batter.

The step that matters

Steaming for 3 hours. Steam keeps the batter moist and lets the leavening raise the loaf while the starches set. Water must not boil dry or the bread will be dense and gummy.

“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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Yermont Brown Bread