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Steamed Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with sweet and sour milk, cornmeal, flour, molasses, 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: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Steamed Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine sweet milk, sour milk, cornmeal, flour, molasses, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Mix until well combined; the mixture will be thin.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased steaming mold.

Steam and dry

  1. Steam for 3 hours.

  2. After steaming, dry the bread in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for a few minutes.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Milk and flour 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

Cornmeal
Provides the bulk and hearty, crumbly texture of the bread.
Flour
Adds structure so the steamed loaf holds together.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that leavens the bread.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture.

The step that matters

Keep the mold covered and steaming steadily. Steam provides gentle, moist heat that sets the batter without drying it. Letting the water level drop or the steam escape can leave the loaf dense or dry, so the steaming needs to be continuous for the full time.

“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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