Why it works: Rye and corn work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 182 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓
Brown Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Scald ½ cup of corn meal.
Add 2 cups of sour milk and 1 teaspoon of saleratus.
Mix in 2 cups of rye meal and 2 cups of corn meal.
Cook
Pour the mixture into a tin pail.
Boil for three hours in water.
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.
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Rye + corntop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together182 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Rye + milktop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together918 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together804 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 meal
- Forms the dense, hearty body of the bread.
- Corn meal
- Adds structure and a coarse, crumbly texture to the loaf.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark color through browning.
- Sour milk
- Provides moisture and acidity that reacts with the saleratus.
- Saleratus
- Releases carbon dioxide when it meets the sour milk, helping the bread rise.
The step that matters
Adding the saleratus to the sour milk. Saleratus reacts with the acid in sour milk as soon as they meet, releasing gas that lifts the batter. If the mixture waits before it goes into the pail and boils, much of that lift is lost, leaving a denser loaf.
“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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