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Steamed Brown Bread

A steamed bread made from bread crumbs, egg, sweet milk, molasses, raisins, and thickeners.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 and thicken the batter with graham flour and corn meal until it reaches the thickness of gem batter.

Steam

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

  2. Cover the cans and steam for 3 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.

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 of the batter and a soft, tender crumb.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a rich flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Raisins
Add pockets of sweetness and chewy texture throughout the bread.
Graham flour and corn meal
Thicken the batter so it holds its shape while steaming.

The step that matters

Filling the cans two-thirds full. Steamed batters rise as they cook and need room to expand. Overfilling can cause the batter to push against the lid and become dense or spill, while underfilling gives a small, dry loaf.

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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