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Dessert

Brown Bread

A steamed and baked cornmeal bread flavored with molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Brown Bread

Why it works: Flour and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,429 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. Sift together the cornmeal, flour, and salt.

  2. Add the molasses and enough water to make a medium batter.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in a little water and add it to the batter.

Steam and bake

  1. Pour the batter into two well-greased pint cans or one large can and cover tightly.

  2. Steam for two hours.

  3. Bake for 30 minutes or longer if using one can.

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. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Provides the coarse, grainy body and the characteristic corn flavor of the bread.
All-purpose flour
Supplies gluten-forming proteins that give the bread enough structure to hold together.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness that contributes to browning.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to produce gas that lightens the batter.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda before adding it to the batter. Baking soda needs to be fully dissolved so it spreads evenly through the batter. Clumps can leave pockets of bitter flavor and uneven rising.

“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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