Skip to main content
Bread

Brown Bread

A yeast‑leavened bread made with rye flour, cornmeal, molasses, salt, baking soda, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Brown Bread

Why it works: Rye and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,320 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Scald the cornmeal and let it cool.

  2. Mix the rye flour with the cornmeal until stiff enough to stir.

  3. Add the molasses, salt, baking soda, and yeast, and mix well.

Fill and rise

  1. Butter the iron pans.

  2. Fill the pans with the mixture, smoothing the top with a little water.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 1 to 2 hours.

Bake

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 4 hours.

  2. Leave the bread in the oven overnight.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Rye + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together348 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Rye flour
Adds structure and a dense, hearty texture to the loaf.
Cornmeal
Provides the bulk of the loaf and a coarse, crumbly texture.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the bread.
Yeast
Ferments the batter so it rises and becomes lighter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the loaf rise and darken.

The step that matters

Leave the bread in the oven overnight. Long, slow baking and cooling in the oven dries the dense batter fully and sets the crumb. Removing it too early can leave the center gummy and underbaked.

“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.

More brown bread recipes

Boston 349Steamed 107Pudding 51New England 20Ice Cream 14Biscuits 11 See all 420 →

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes