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Bread

Bran Bread

A loaf made with sour milk, molasses, bran flour, white flour, 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: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Bran Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix sour milk and molasses.

  2. Add bran flour, white flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir until combined.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

Bake

  1. Bake slowly for 1 ½ 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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
Adds moisture and acidity, which reacts with the baking soda to help the loaf rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark color and rich flavor to the loaf.
Bran flour
Adds fiber and a dense, hearty texture, so the loaf is heavier than one made with white flour.
White flour
Provides gluten structure that gives the loaf a lighter crumb and holds its shape.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.

The step that matters

Bake slowly for 1 ½ hours. Molasses and bran brown and darken quickly at high heat, so a low oven lets the dense center cook through before the crust over-browns.

“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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