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 ↓
New England 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.
Prepare the dough
Mix the rye, Indian, and white flours in a large bowl.
Add the yeast, salt, brown sugar or molasses, and warm water. Mix well.
Cover the dough and let it rise overnight.
Shape and bake
In the morning, knead the dough lightly and shape it into loaves.
Let the loaves rise for 45 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C) and bake the bread for 1 hour and 15 minutes or longer.
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.
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Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,320 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Rye + sugartop 25% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together535 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rye flour
- Gives the bread its dense, hearty structure and dark, earthy flavor.
- Indian flour
- Adds coarse texture and a slightly sweet, grainy character to the crumb.
- White flour
- Provides gluten for structure so the loaves can hold their shape and rise.
- Yeast
- Produces gas as it ferments the sugars, leavening the dough so it rises.
- Brown sugar or molasses
- Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness, color, and moisture to the loaf.
The step that matters
Overnight rise. Long, slow fermentation lets the yeast develop flavor and lets the heavy rye and cornmeal flours absorb water and soften. Rising too short or too long changes the crumb and flavor.
“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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