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Bread

Brown Bread

A steamed and baked molasses bread made with sweet and sour milk, graham flour, cornmeal, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Brown Bread

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 ↓

Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk.

  2. In a large bowl, combine sweet milk, sour milk, graham flour, cornmeal, molasses, dissolved baking soda, and baking powder.

  3. If desired, add currants or raisins and flour them well.

Steam and dry

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased mold.

  2. Steam for 3 hours.

  3. After steaming, dry in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 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.

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.

  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 + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Molasses + curranttop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,817 recipes
  5. 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

Graham flour
Provides the body and hearty structure of the bread.
Cornmeal
Adds coarse texture and helps give the loaf its crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep brown color.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acidity to produce gas that lifts the loaf.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tang and moisture.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk first. Baking soda reacts with acid in the sour milk to release carbon dioxide. Dissolving it before mixing spreads the reaction evenly, so the loaf rises uniformly rather than in pockets.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, molasses):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, molasses. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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