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Bread

Steamed Brown Bread

A steamed bread made from cornmeal, graham flour, baking soda, salt, sour milk, and molasses.

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

Steamed Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sift the dry ingredients together.

  2. Mix the molasses and sour milk well.

Make and steam

  1. Combine the mixtures and beat thoroughly.

  2. Pour into greased moulds.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + molassestop 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).

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 main body of the bread, giving it its coarse, crumbly structure.
Graham flour
Adds structure and a heartier, nutty texture alongside the cornmeal.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas, helping the bread rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tang.
Molasses
Adds moisture, sweetness, depth of flavour and a darker colour.

The step that matters

Beat the mixtures thoroughly. Thorough beating evenly distributes the baking soda and sour milk reaction through the batter, so the bread rises consistently rather than unevenly or leaving dense pockets.

“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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