Name: Brown Bread
Ingredients: 1 cup rye flour; 2 cups cornmeal; 1 cup white flour; 1 cup graham flour; 1 to 2 cups syrup; 2½ to 3 cups sour ale; 2 teaspoons baking soda; 1 teaspoon salt

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 all the flours, syrup, sour ale, baking soda, and salt together until well combined.
Transfer the mixture to a covered pail.
Steam the pail for three 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.

Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,320 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,540 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Rye + syruptop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together46 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 ale's acidity to produce gas that lightens the bread.
Sour ale: Provides liquid and acidity that activates the baking soda and adds tang.
Cornmeal: Gives the bread its coarse, dense texture and structure.
Syrup: Adds sweetness, moisture, and helps the bread brown and stay soft.
Rye flour: Adds earthy flavour and moisture-holding starch for a dense crumb.

“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.