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Steamed Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with Graham flour, sour milk, molasses, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk 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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Mix and sift the dry ingredients together.

  2. Combine the thick sour milk (or cornmeal) with the thin sour milk and molasses.

  3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well.

  4. Pour the mixture into a greased mold and cover tightly.

Steam and finish

  1. Steam for 3 hours.

  2. After steaming, dry the bread in a 350°F (175°C) oven for a few moments before removing from the mold.

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 + milktop 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).

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

Graham flour
Provides the bulk and the coarse, hearty structure of the loaf.
Thick sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to make the bread rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk acid to release gas, lifting the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark color to the crumb.
Cornmeal
Can replace the thick sour milk, adding body and a coarser texture.

The step that matters

Covering the mold tightly before steaming. A loose cover lets steam escape and water condense unevenly, so the bread can turn out dense or soggy. A tight seal keeps steam around the loaf so it cooks evenly and rises.

“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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