Name: Brown Bread
Ingredients: 1 cup cornmeal; 1 cup rye meal; 1 cup sour milk; 1 cup water; ½ cup molasses; ½ cup white sugar; 1 large teaspoon baking soda; 1 small teaspoon salt

Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Combine cornmeal, rye meal, sour milk, water, molasses, white sugar, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and mix until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a greased steaming dish.
Steam for 3 to 4 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.

Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,225 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together918 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together804 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,243 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Cornmeal: Gives the bread its coarse, grainy texture and body.
Rye meal: Adds an earthy flavor and a dense, moist crumb.
Sour milk: Its acidity reacts with baking soda to help the bread rise.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture.

“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.