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Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with cornmeal, rye flour, molasses, baking soda, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Brown Bread

Why it works: Rye and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,320 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine cornmeal, rye flour, and molasses.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in a small amount of milk and add it to the mixture.

  3. Pour in the remaining milk and mix until well combined.

Steam

  1. Transfer the batter to a greased steaming dish.

  2. Steam for 3 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

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

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 bulk and coarse, sturdy structure of the bread.
Rye flour
Adds body and a denser, chewier texture than wheat flour alone.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the bread.
Milk
Hydrates the dry ingredients so they form a pourable batter.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda before adding it. Baking soda needs to be evenly dispersed in the batter so it reacts with the molasses throughout. Clumps can leave pockets that are bitter or uneven in rise.

“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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