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Bread

Pone Bread

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pone Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grease a pan suitable for the loaf.

Make and cook the bread

  1. In a bowl, mix cornmeal, flour, sour milk, baking soda, molasses, and salt.

  2. Pour the mixture into the greased pan.

  3. Steam for 3 hours.

  4. Bake for 15 minutes.

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 + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Forms the main body of the loaf and gives it a coarse, crumbly texture.
Flour
Adds structure so the loaf holds together after steaming and baking.
Sour milk
Provides acidity that reacts with the baking soda and keeps the crumb moist.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the loaf.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a rich flavor, and helps keep the loaf moist.

The step that matters

Steam for 3 hours. Steaming cooks the batter gently with moist heat, setting the starches and proteins without drying the loaf. Keep the water level steady so the pan does not boil dry, since the long steam time is what makes the bread cook through.

“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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