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Bread

Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with sour milk, molasses, ginger, baking soda, salt, rye flour, and cornmeal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Brown Bread

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 ↓

Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, combine sour milk, molasses, ginger, baking soda, coarse sea salt, rye flour, and cornmeal, and mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased steaming mold.

  3. Steam for 4 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. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + ryetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

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

  3. Ginger + ryetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together54 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour 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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to produce gas, so the bread rises and turns light.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release carbon dioxide, lifting the batter during steaming.
Rye flour
Provides the bulk and dark, earthy structure of the bread, with gluten-light crumb.
Cornmeal
Adds a coarser, grainy texture and body to the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and the dark colour characteristic of brown bread.

The step that matters

Filling the steaming mold. The batter must be well mixed but the mold should not be overfilled, since the leavening from the baking soda and sour milk makes the bread expand while steaming. Leaving headroom prevents overflow and a dense, unevenly cooked loaf.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, molasses, rye, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, molasses, rye, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More brown bread recipes

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