Skip to main content
Bread

Steamed Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with graham flour, bran, nuts, dried fruit, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Steamed Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the beaten egg, graham flour, milk, baking powder, bran, chopped nuts, soft butter, figs, raisins, salt, and molasses until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a round cream bread pan.

Steam

  1. Steam 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Fig + raisintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Milk + figtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,026 recipes

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

  5. Nuts + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together490 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets.
Graham flour
Provides the main structure and the bread's hearty texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the batter so the loaf rises and stays light.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture to the loaf.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and bran so the batter pours and sets moist.
Bran
Absorbs liquid and adds fibre-rich bulk and a coarse texture.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, milk, butter, fig, raisin, molasses):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, milk, butter, fig, raisin, molasses. 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.

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes