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Bread

Nantucket Brown Bread

A moist cornmeal and Graham flour loaf sweetened with molasses and raisins, baked or steamed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Nantucket 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.

Make the batter

  1. Combine cornmeal, Graham flour, sour milk, molasses, baking soda, salt, and raisins in a large bowl. Mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased loaf pan.

Steam and finish

  1. Steam the loaf for 3 hours.

  2. If necessary, place the loaf in a 350°F (175°C) oven for a few minutes to finish cooking.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  5. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and milk 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

Cornmeal
Forms the bulk of the loaf and gives it its coarse, hearty structure.
Graham flour
Adds body and a nutty, wholesome texture to the crumb.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the loaf rise and stay tender.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture, and deepens the flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.

The step that matters

Steam the loaf for 3 hours. Steaming keeps the dense batter moist while it sets through. Too little water or heat can leave the loaf gummy or underbaked in the centre, so keep the steam steady for the full time.

“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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