Name: Raisin Brown Bread
Ingredients: 2 cups buttermilk; 1 cup cornmeal; 2 cups graham flour; 1½ cups seeded raisins; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 cup molasses; 1 teaspoon salt

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 ↓

Raisin Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

Dissolve the baking soda in the molasses.
In a large bowl, combine buttermilk, cornmeal, graham flour, raisins, dissolved baking soda, and salt.

Steam

Pour the mixture into baking powder cans.
Steam the cans for 3 hours.

Brown and finish

Remove from steam and brown in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 5 minutes.

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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,721 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Buttermilk + molassestop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together526 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,577 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,429 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 acidic buttermilk and molasses to produce gas that lifts the bread.
Buttermilk: Adds moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda and softens the crumb.
Graham flour: Provides the main structure and a coarse, nutty texture.
Cornmeal: Adds grainy texture and body to the crumb.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark color to the loaf.
Raisins: Add sweetness and chewy pockets throughout the bread.

The step that matters

Steaming the cans. Steam is the only heat during this stage, so the cans must stay steaming for the full 3 hours. Steady heat lets the baking soda reaction set the rise and cook the batter through; uneven or weak steam leaves the bread dense or 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.

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Raisin Brown Bread