Name: Sour Milk Brown Bread
Ingredients: 1 cup cornmeal; 1 cup rye meal; 1 cup whole wheat flour or white flour; 1 cup graham flour; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 2 cups sour milk

Why it works: Rye and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Sour Milk Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

In a large bowl, mix the cornmeal, rye meal, whole wheat flour, graham flour, salt, and baking soda.
Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk and add it to the dry ingredients.
If the batter is too thick, add more sour milk or water until it can be poured.

Steam and serve

Pour the mixture into a greased steaming mold.
Steam for three hours.
Optionally, add ½ cup of raisins for a plum loaf.

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.

Rye + wheattop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together404 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,418 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,320 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together918 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal: Gives the loaf a coarse, grainy texture and a distinct corn flavor.
Rye meal: Adds a dense crumb and a robust, earthy flavor.
Whole wheat flour or white flour: Provides gluten-based structure that holds the loaf together.
Graham flour: Adds nutty flavor and a slightly coarse, tender texture.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in sour milk to release gas that lightens the batter.
Sour milk: Supplies moisture and the acid that activates the baking soda.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the sour milk. Baking soda reacts with the acid in sour milk to release carbon dioxide. Dissolving it fully before adding it to the dry ingredients distributes the gas evenly, so the loaf rises uniformly rather than in 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.

Wheat Bread65 recipes

Whole Wheat Bread55 recipes

Barley Wheat Bread6 recipes

Cornbread345 recipes

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Sour Milk Brown Bread