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Bread

Steamed Corn Bread

A steamed bread made with flour, cornmeal, molasses, sour milk, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Steamed Corn Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sift together the flour, cornmeal, and salt.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in a little molasses, then add it to the remaining molasses and sour milk.

Mix and steam

  1. Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and beat well.

  2. Steam the mixture for 2 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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + milktop 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

Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas, which leavens the batter so it rises.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tang and moisture to the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture, and gives the bread its rich flavor.
Flour
Provides structure that holds the batter together as it sets.
Corn meal
Gives the bread its characteristic grainy texture and corn flavor.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in molasses before mixing. Baking soda needs acid to react and release gas. Combining it with the sour milk and molasses, then beating the wet mixture into the dry ingredients promptly, keeps the leavening working so the batter rises rather than falling flat.

“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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