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Bread

Raisin Bread

A loaf of raisin bread made with cornmeal, corn flour, wheat flour, molasses, sweet milk, egg, raisins, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Raisin Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients: corn meal, corn flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Add the molasses, egg, and sweet milk to the dry mixture and stir until well combined.

  3. Fold in the raisins.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a loaf pan and bake for 1½ 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Corn + wheattop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 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

Corn meal
Provides the main structure and a coarse, grainy texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it works, helping the loaf rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to lift the batter and deepen color.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark color with a rich flavor.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the dry ingredients and gives the batter its moisture.

The step that matters

Mixing the wet and dry ingredients. Stir only until combined. Overmixing develops gluten in the wheat flour and can make the loaf dense and tough, while the leaveners need to be spread evenly through the batter to rise well.

Swap the raisin

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

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

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

More raisin bread recipes

Pudding 13Cake 12Molasses 5Steamed 4English 3Spiced 3 See all 42 →

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