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Bread

Eastern Brown Bread

A dense bread made from rye or Graham flour, Indian meal, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, and cold water, steamed then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and milk 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 ↓

Eastern Brown Bread

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.

Prepare

  1. Combine the rye or Graham flour, Indian meal, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, and cold water in a large bowl.

  2. Place the mixture in a pot over cold water on the stove.

Steam and brown

  1. Bring the water to a boil and keep it boiling for 4 hours to steam the bread.

  2. After steaming, transfer the bread to a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) to 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. Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

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

  2. Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + milktop 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

Rye or graham flour
Provides the main structure and body of the bread.
Indian meal
Adds a coarse, crumbly texture and helps the loaf hold together.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark color that deepens during browning.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the bread rise.
Baking soda
Releases gas when combined with the acidic sour milk, lifting the batter.

The step that matters

Keep the water at a steady boil for the full steaming time. Steam gives gentle, moist heat that cooks this dense batter through without drying it. If the water stops boiling, the bread cooks unevenly and can turn heavy or 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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