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Bread

Steamed Corn Bread

A steamed bread made from cornmeal, flour, sour milk, molasses, baking soda, 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 ↓

Steamed Corn 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 cornmeal, flour, sour milk, molasses, baking soda, and salt. Mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased steaming dish.

Steam and bake

  1. Steam for 2 hours.

  2. After steaming, bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

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
Provides the main body and corn flavor of the bread.
All-purpose flour
Adds structure so the bread holds together after steaming.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda so the bread rises, and it adds moisture.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that leavens the bread.

The step that matters

Steaming before baking. Steaming cooks the batter gently and sets its structure while moisture keeps it tender. Baking afterward dries and browns the surface. Skipping the steam or rushing the bake changes the texture from moist to dense or dry.

“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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