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Steamed Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with graham flour, cornmeal, molasses, sour milk, and optional raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Steamed Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the graham flour, baking soda, cornmeal, molasses, salt, and sour milk until well combined.

  2. If desired, fold in raisins.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased steaming mold.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 hearty, wholesome structure of the loaf.
Cornmeal
Adds a coarser, crumbly texture and a slightly grainy bite to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts and lightens the bread.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep brown colour and flavour.
Sour milk
Supplies moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda.

The step that matters

Steam for 3 hours until cooked through. Steaming cooks the batter gently with moist heat, so the loaf sets without drying out. Water must be kept topping up in the pot, since a low water level lets the bread dry and turn dense.

“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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