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Bread

Steamed Corn Bread

A steamed bread made with milk, cornmeal, flour, molasses, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Steamed Corn Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, cornmeal, and salt thoroughly.

  2. Add milk and beat until smooth.

  3. Dissolve baking soda in molasses and add to the mixture.

Steam and bake

  1. Pour the batter into a buttered pan.

  2. Steam for 3 hours over cold water.

  3. Transfer to the oven and bake for 15 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.

  1. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Cornmeal
Provides the coarse grain structure and the characteristic corn flavor and texture.
All-purpose flour
Adds gluten-forming protein that gives the batter body and holds its shape.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and cornmeal and moistens the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture with a deep flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the batter.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the molasses. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release gas. Mixing it into the acidic molasses first spreads it evenly, so the batter rises uniformly rather than in dense pockets.

“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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