Name: Steamed Brown Bread
Ingredients: 1 cup molasses; 2 cups cornmeal; 1 cup graham flour; ¼ cup wheat flour; a pinch of salt; 1 teaspoon baking powder; shortening (as needed); milk (to make a very thin batter)

Why it works: Wheat and milk 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 ↓

Steamed Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, combine molasses, cornmeal, graham flour, wheat flour, salt, and baking powder.
Add shortening and enough milk to create a very thin batter.

Steam

Pour the batter into a greased steaming dish.
Steam for 4 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.

Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,418 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,429 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together7,243 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

Molasses: Adds sweetness, depth of flavour and moisture to the batter.
Cornmeal: Provides the bulk and coarse texture of the bread.
Graham flour: Adds a nutty, wholesome flavour and some structure to the batter.
Baking powder: Releases gas to lift the batter as it heats, giving a lighter crumb.

“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.