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Bread

Indian Bread

A yeast-leavened bread made with Indian meal, Graham flour, wheat flour, butter, and milk or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Indian Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Scald the Indian meal with the boiling milk or water.

  2. Let it cool, then add the Graham flour, wheat flour, melted butter, salt, and yeast dissolved in warm water.

  3. Mix well and let it sit overnight.

  4. In the morning, stir the mixture down.

Bake

  1. Transfer to a well-buttered pan and let it rise for 30 minutes.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until done.

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. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Indian meal
Scalding softens the cornmeal so it absorbs liquid and gives the bread a tender, moist crumb.
Graham flour
Adds coarse bran and wheat flavour and gives the loaf a denser, heartier structure.
Wheat flour
Provides gluten that builds structure and helps the loaf hold its shape.
Yeast
Ferments overnight and then during the rise, producing gas that leavens the bread.
Butter
Adds fat for softer texture and richer flavour, and helps keep the crumb moist.

The step that matters

Scalding the Indian meal. Pouring boiling liquid over the cornmeal gelatinises its starch so it absorbs moisture. Skipping or rushing this leaves a gritty, dry crumb and uneven texture in the finished bread.

“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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