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Bread

Cerealine Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with cerealine, graham flour, rye meal, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and rye 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 ↓

Cerealine Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the baking soda and salt into the sour milk.

  2. In another bowl, combine the cerealine, graham flour, rye meal, and molasses.

  3. Pour the sour milk mixture over the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.

  4. Transfer the batter into a well-greased bread mold.

Steam

  1. Steam for 5 hours, ensuring the water in the steamer is boiling hot when added.

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 + ryetop 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. Molasses + ryetop 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

Cerealine
Forms the main body of the loaf and gives it its structure.
Graham flour
Adds coarse texture and a nutty, wholesome flavor to the crumb.
Rye meal
Adds moisture-holding starch and a distinctive earthy flavor.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the bread.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to produce gas that raises the bread.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to leaven the batter.

The step that matters

Steam for 5 hours with boiling water. Adding cold water lowers the steamer temperature and slows the cooking, so the loaf may turn out heavy or underdone. Keeping the steam hot and continuous lets the batter set evenly while the leavening gas works.

“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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