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Baked Brown Bread

A dense bread made with Indian meal, rye flour, molasses, and baking soda, baked slowly for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and milk work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 918 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Baked Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the Indian meal, rye flour, molasses, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Add enough milk to create a batter similar to cake batter.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.

Bake

  1. Bake slowly for 4 to 5 hours.

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. Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Indian meal
Provides the main body and coarse, grainy structure of the bread.
Rye flour or graham flour
Adds structure and a hearty, nutty flavour to the crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour, and moisture to the bread.
Magic soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the bread rise.
Milk
Hydrates the flours and turns the mixture into a pourable cake-like batter.

The step that matters

Bake slowly for 4 to 5 hours. Long, low baking gives the dense cornmeal and rye batter time to set through without drying or burning on the outside. Too high a heat can crust the surface while the centre stays wet.

“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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