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Steamed Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with bread crumbs, raisins, molasses, and sweet milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Steamed Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine bread crumbs, egg, sweet milk, molasses, salt, and baking soda.

  2. Mix in raisins.

  3. Thicken the mixture with graham flour and corn meal until it reaches the thickness of gem batter.

Steam and serve

  1. Fill three 1-pound baking powder cans two-thirds full with the batter.

  2. Steam the cans for 3 hours with the covers on.

  3. Allow to cool before serving.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body of the batter, soaking up the liquid.
Egg
Binds the batter so it holds together after steaming.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a moist, rich texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses' acidity to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Graham flour
Adds structure and a nutty, wholesome flavor to the thickened batter.
Corn meal
Adds texture and firmness, helping the batter set as it steams.

The step that matters

Fill the cans two-thirds full. The batter rises while steaming, so overfilling can make it spill over or bake dense and uneven. Leaving room lets it expand evenly as the steam works on it.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, milk, molasses, flour, corn):

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, milk, molasses, flour, corn. 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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