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Bread

Steamed Brown Bread

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

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

Mix the batter

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

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

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

Buttermilk
Provides acidity that reacts with the baking soda and keeps the bread moist.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk and molasses to produce gas that leavens the bread.
Cornmeal
Forms the bulk of the structure and gives the bread its coarse, crumbly texture.
Graham meal
Adds body and a nutty, wholesome flavour along with the cornmeal.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the structure as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in boiling water. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and mixed in promptly so that it reacts evenly with the acid in the buttermilk and molasses. Uneven mixing leaves pockets of soda, which can taste bitter and give an uneven rise.

“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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