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Steamed Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with sweet milk, molasses, cornmeal, rye or Graham flour, salt, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Steamed 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 and steam

  1. In a bowl, mix the sweet milk, molasses, cornmeal, rye or Graham flour, salt, and baking soda until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased steaming mold.

  3. Steam for 3 hours.

Bake and serve

  1. After steaming, bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes or until done.

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

Rye or graham flour
Provides the bulk and structure of the loaf, giving it a hearty, dense crumb.
Cornmeal
Adds body and a coarse, grainy texture to the crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture with a deep flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flours and cornmeal so the batter forms and sets during cooking.

The step that matters

Steam for 3 hours. Steam keeps the surface moist so the loaf cooks through evenly without drying out. Steaming too briefly leaves the center gummy and underset, while the baking soda needs the wet heat to lift the dense batter.

“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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