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Bread

Brown Bread, Sour Hilk

A rye and cornmeal bread baked with sour milk, molasses, raisins, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Brown Bread, Sour Hilk

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stir the raisins, cut them into quarters, and mix with some of the graham flour.

  2. In a bowl, mix the rye meal, corn meal, and salt.

Mix and steam

  1. Sift in the baking soda, then add the molasses and sour milk.

  2. Stir in the raisins and enough water to make a pourable batter.

  3. Steam the mixture for 3 to 4 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. Rye + corntop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together182 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Rye + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acid to release carbon dioxide, which lightens the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark color to the loaf.
Rye meal
Gives a dense, earthy body with little gluten to build structure.
Corn meal
Adds a coarse, slightly crumbly texture to the loaf.
Graham flour
Adds a nutty, whole-grain flavor and a more open texture.

The step that matters

Sift in the baking soda and proceed quickly. Baking soda begins reacting as soon as it meets the acidic sour milk and moisture. Getting the batter into the steamer promptly keeps the gas bubbles trapped so the bread rises well instead of going flat.

“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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