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Bread

Baked Brown Bread

A simple baked bread made with molasses, sour milk, graham flour, white flour, 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: Milk and flour 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 ↓

Baked Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. In a pint cup, combine ½ cup molasses and fill with sour milk.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 cups graham flour, and 1 cup white flour. Mix well and pour into a bread pan.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for about 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Milk and flour 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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to produce gas that lightens the loaf.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk and molasses to make the bread rise.
Graham flour
Its bran and germ add coarse texture and a nutty, wholesome flavour.
White flour
Provides gluten-forming structure that holds the loaf together.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deep colour to the crumb.

The step that matters

Mixing the batter well with the baking soda. Baking soda must be evenly distributed through the batter so it reacts with the acid in the sour milk and molasses throughout, giving an even rise without pockets of soda or dense patches.

“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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