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Bread

Steamed Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with cornmeal, rye meal, wheat flour, molasses, sweet milk, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Steamed Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Mix the cornmeal, rye meal, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Mash the baking soda, sift it into the meal mixture, and mix thoroughly.

  3. Add the molasses and sweet milk, then beat well.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased mold, cover it, and steam for 2 ¾ hours.

  2. Alternatively, use small cups, cover with greased paper, and steam for 1 hour.

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 + wheattop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Forms the bulk of the loaf and gives it a coarse, crumbly structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acid to lift the batter as it steams.
Rye meal
Adds a dense, hearty texture and a deeper flavor to the loaf.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture, and reacts with the baking soda.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the dry meals so the batter forms a pourable mixture.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten-forming structure to help the loaf hold together.

The step that matters

Mixing the baking soda into the meal. Baking soda must be sifted and mixed thoroughly so it distributes evenly; clumps leave pockets of bitter alkali and uneven rising in the steamed loaf.

“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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