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Bread

Brown Bread

A steamed then baked bread made with buttermilk, cornmeal, flour, baking soda, salt, and optional cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Brown Bread

Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Mix and pour

  1. In a bowl, combine buttermilk, cornmeal, flour, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Pour the mixture into a tube cake pan.

Steam and bake

  1. Cover the pan and steam for 2 hours.

  2. Remove the cover and bake for 15 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.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Buttermilk + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Buttermilk
Supplies acidity that reacts with baking soda and adds moisture and tang.
Cornmeal
Forms the main structure and gives the bread its coarse texture and corn flavor.
Flour
Adds gluten-based structure so the bread holds its shape.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in buttermilk to release gas that lifts the batter.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into the pan promptly. Baking soda starts reacting with the acid in buttermilk as soon as the mixture is combined. Gas bubbles form quickly, so waiting before pouring and steaming can reduce the lift the batter gets from the leavening.

“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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