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Bread

Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with Indian meal, rye meal, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, and optional raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Brown Bread

Why it works: Rye and raisin work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine Indian meal, rye meal, salt, molasses, and sour milk in a bowl.

  2. Dissolve baking soda in a little warm water and add to the mixture.

  3. Stir in stoned raisins if using.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the mixture for 4 hours.

  2. Let it cool for a few minutes before serving.

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 + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  5. Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 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 acidity of the sour milk and molasses to release gas, lightening the dense batter.
Rye meal
Provides the dark, earthy structure and flavour that defines the bread.
Indian meal
Gives the bread its body and coarse, crumbly texture as the main grain.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture to the batter.
Sour milk or sweet
Supplies liquid that hydrates the meals and activates the baking soda.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda before adding it. Baking soda needs moisture and acid to react. Dissolving it in warm water spreads it evenly so the bread rises uniformly rather than forming dense pockets or bitter streaks.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rye, molasses, milk):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rye, molasses, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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