Why it works: Milk and corn 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 ↓
Broavn Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the batter
In a large bowl, combine sweet milk, graham flour, corn meal, molasses, salt, and baking soda, and mix until well combined.
Steam
Pour the mixture into four 1-pound baking powder cans, covering them with lids.
Steam the cans for 3 hours.
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.
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Flour + corntop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,429 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,243 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Milk and flour 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
- Graham flour
- Provides the bulk and structure of the bread, with a coarse, hearty texture.
- Corn meal
- Adds a grainy texture and helps the loaf hold its crumb.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, moisture, and the dark brown color.
- Sweet milk
- Hydrates the flours and provides the liquid that makes the batter pourable.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the molasses's acidity to produce gas that lightens the loaf.
The step that matters
Keep the cans covered while steaming. Covering the cans traps steam so the batter cooks in moist heat and does not dry out. Baking soda needs heat and moisture to react and lift the bread, so the lids should stay on for the full 3 hours.
“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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