Name: Brown Bread
Ingredients: 2 cups flour; 3 cups corn meal; ¼ cup sweet milk; 1½ cups sour milk; 1 teaspoon baking soda (dissolved in milk); 1 teaspoon salt; 1 cup molasses

Why it works: Corn and milk 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 ↓

Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a large bowl, combine the flour, corn meal, sweet milk, sour milk, baking soda, salt, and molasses. Mix until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a greased steaming mold.

Steam

Steam for three 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,165 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,429 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,243 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Flour and milk 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

Flour: Provides structure so the batter holds its shape after steaming.
Corn meal: Gives the bread its coarse, dense texture and characteristic flavour.
Sour milk: Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift and soften the crumb.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas, helping the bread rise.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture to the finished bread.

“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.