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Bread

Steamed Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with molasses, cornmeal, graham meal, eggs, butter, and buttermilk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and buttermilk work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 526 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Steamed Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a quart measure, combine 1 cup of molasses and fill with fresh buttermilk.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and 2 teaspoons of baking soda dissolved in 1 tablespoon of boiling water.

  3. Stir in 2 cups of cornmeal, 2 cups of graham meal, 2 beaten eggs, and 1 tablespoon of melted butter.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a closed pail and steam for 4 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. Molasses + buttermilktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Buttermilk + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Buttermilk + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,986 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Molasses + buttertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,123 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

Molasses
Adds sweetness and a dark color, and moisture to the loaf.
Buttermilk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift the bread and keeps it moist.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk and molasses to produce gas that makes the bread rise.
Cornmeal
Provides the coarse, dense body and the grainy texture of the bread.
Graham meal
Adds a nutty, wholesome flavor and more body to the crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure to the steamed loaf.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in boiling water. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and mixed in promptly so it reacts evenly with the acids in the batter. Uneven mixing leaves pockets of soda that taste bitter and gas that is wasted before the bread sets.

“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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