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Kate's Brown Bread

A yeast-leavened brown bread made with cornmeal, rye, wheat flour, molasses, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Kate's Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA very moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Scald 1 pint of cornmeal with boiling water to make a thin batter.

  2. Add 1 cup molasses and 1 teaspoon salt to the batter.

  3. When lukewarm, stir in 1 cup of yeast, 1 pint rye flour, and 1 pint wheat flour.

  4. Add milk as needed to make a stiff batter.

Rise and bake

  1. Fill a 2-quart pan halfway with batter.

  2. Wet your hand with cold water to smooth the top.

  3. Cover with a tin plate.

  4. Let it rise until light.

  5. Bake, still covered, in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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.

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 + wheattop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Forms the thick, starchy body of the loaf once scalded and baked.
Rye flour
Adds structure and a dense, hearty texture to the crumb.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten-forming structure to help the loaf hold its shape.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the batter rise until light before baking.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the bread.

The step that matters

Let it rise until light. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas to lighten the dense batter; underproofing leaves a heavy loaf, while the stiff batter still needs room to expand before baking.

“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.

More brown bread recipes

Boston 349Steamed 107Pudding 51New England 20Ice Cream 14Biscuits 11 See all 420 →

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