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Bread

New England Brown Bread

A steamed and baked rye and cornmeal bread made with sour milk, molasses, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and rye work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 918 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

New England Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine sour milk, molasses, and salt.

  2. Add rye meal and cornmeal, mixing well.

  3. Add warm water as needed to achieve a batter consistency.

  4. Stir in baking soda until fully incorporated.

Steam and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased loaf pan.

  2. Steam for 3 hours.

  3. After steaming, bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until browned.

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. Milk + ryetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Molasses + ryetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to help the bread rise.
Rye meal
Provides the dense, earthy structure and flavor of the loaf.
Coarse yellow cornmeal
Gives the bread its crumbly texture and golden color.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and deep brown color.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.

The step that matters

Stir in baking soda until fully incorporated. Baking soda reacts with the acid in sour milk as soon as it is mixed in, releasing gas that lifts the batter. Even distribution gives an even rise and crumb, so streaks or pockets of unmixed soda can leave the loaf uneven.

“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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