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Dessert

Brown Bread and Meal Pudding

A steamed pudding made from cornmeal, rye flour, graham flour, molasses, sour milk, and optional raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Brown Bread and Meal Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the corn meal, rye flour, graham flour, salt, and baking soda in a bowl.

  2. Stir in the molasses and sour milk until well combined.

  3. If desired, fold in the raisins.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-greased mold, lard pail, or baking powder cans.

  2. Steam for 3 hours until cooked through.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Corn + ryetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together182 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Corn meal
Provides the main body and coarse, crumbly texture of the pudding.
Graham flour
Adds a nutty, hearty flavor and a denser crumb than white flour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture, along with a deep caramel-like flavor.
Sour milk
Supplies moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda for rise.

The step that matters

Steaming the batter for the full time. Steam heats the pudding gently and evenly, so the batter sets through the center. Lifting the lid or cutting it short leaves the middle wet and dense, since the starches and proteins need sustained heat to set.

“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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