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Bread

Brown Bread Cakes

A baked bread cake made with sour milk, baking soda, molasses or sugar, melted lard, egg, egg white, and whole wheat flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Brown Bread Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the sour milk and baking soda, then add molasses or sugar and melted lard, and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolk and then fold it into the mixture, then gently fold in the beaten egg white.

  4. Gradually add the whole wheat flour until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

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 + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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
Reacts with baking soda to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to leaven the batter so it rises.
Egg white
Beaten egg white traps air, adding lift and a lighter crumb.
Whole wheat flour
Provides the main structure as its proteins and starches set during baking.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavour.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg white gently. Beaten egg white holds air that gives lift. Stirring vigorously or over-mixing deflates the foam, leaving a denser cake with less rise.

“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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