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Steamed Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with buttermilk, molasses, cornmeal, and Graham flour, baked in a kettle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Steamed 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

  1. Mix buttermilk, molasses, cornmeal, baking soda, salt, and Graham flour in a large bowl until well combined.

  2. Grease baking powder cans with fresh lard and fill them two-thirds full with the batter.

Steam

  1. Seal the cans tightly with lids and place them in a kettle of boiling water.

  2. Add a weight on top of the cans to prevent them from tipping over.

  3. Cover the kettle with a lid to keep the steam in.

  4. Steam for 2½ hours.

Finish in the oven

  1. Transfer the cans to a 400°F (200°C) oven for 5 minutes to harden the crust.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Buttermilk + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + flourtop 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

Buttermilk
Provides moisture and acidity that react with the baking soda to lift the bread.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk and molasses to produce gas that leavens the loaf.
Orleans molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture to the bread.
Graham flour
Forms the main structure of the bread and gives it a coarse, hearty texture.
Yellow cornmeal
Adds body and a slightly grainy texture to the batter.

The step that matters

Keep the kettle steaming for the full time. Steam gently heats the batter from all sides and keeps the surface moist so the loaf rises and sets evenly. If the water boils dry or the lid is left off, the bread can turn dense and uneven.

“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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