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Bread

Raised Brown Bread

A raised bread made with cornmeal, rye meal, molasses, yeast, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and rye work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 804 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Raised Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the batter

  1. Place the cornmeal in a mixing bowl.

  2. Scald the cornmeal with just enough boiling water to wet it. Let the mixture stand for 10 minutes.

  3. Add cold water to make a soft batter.

Rise and bake

  1. When the batter is lukewarm, add the yeast, molasses, dissolved baking soda, salt, and rye meal. Beat the mixture well.

  2. Let it rise overnight, or until it cracks open if made in the morning. Stir the mixture down.

  3. Place it in a buttered and floured tin to rise again. Sprinkle flour over the top.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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.

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. Molasses + ryetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 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
Forms the bulk of the loaf and, once scalded, gives a moist, tender crumb.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, raising the batter so the loaf becomes light.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture, and feeds the yeast during rising.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to give extra lift and help the crumb open up.
Rye meal
Adds a dense, earthy flavour and structure alongside the cornmeal.

The step that matters

Scalding the cornmeal. Pouring just enough boiling water softens the starch so the grains absorb moisture and swell. Too much water makes the batter runny, while too little leaves dry, gritty 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.

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