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Steamed Brown. Bread
One cup graham flour, one cup corn meal, one cup wheat flour, one teaspoon salt, one teaspoon soda, one-half cup sugar, threefourths.cup molasses, two cups sour milk. Put all in lard pail and steam two and one-half hours.
— Mrs. C. V. Post
A standard three-grain steamed brown bread, leavened entirely by soda reacting with sour milk and molasses. The only real obstacles are the vessel and the ratio of dry to wet, which is thicker than a batter and looser than a dough.
- The lard pailA one- or two-pound lard pail was a straight-sided tin bucket with a friction lid, and such tins were commonly pressed into service as steaming moulds. A well-greased 2-quart pudding basin, coffee can, or metal bowl covered with foil and tied does the same job. Fill it no more than two-thirds full; the loaf climbs.
- Sour milkThis means naturally soured raw milk, thick and clabbered, not spoiled pasteurised milk. Use buttermilk cup for cup, or stir a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice into a cup of whole milk and let it stand ten minutes.
- Graham flourCoarse-ground whole wheat, named for Sylvester Graham. Ordinary stone-ground whole wheat flour is the nearest thing; it will be slightly finer and the crumb slightly less gritty.
- Corn mealYellow or white both work, but use a medium or coarse grind rather than the fine degerminated meal sold for cornbread mixes, which gives a pasty texture in a steamed loaf.
- MolassesUnsulphured dark molasses, not blackstrap, whose flavour is harsh and bitter in a loaf this size. Grease the measuring cup first and the three-quarters will slide out clean.
- The steaming set-upStand the sealed pail on a rack in a deep pot, add boiling water to come halfway up the sides, cover, and keep it at a bare simmer. Check the water hourly and top up with boiling water only, or the loaf stalls.
- MixingWhisk the three flours, salt, soda and sugar together first, then stir in the molasses and sour milk just until no dry flour remains. Overworking makes it heavy, and the soda begins reacting the moment it meets the acid, so get it into the pail and over the heat promptly.
- Doneness and yieldTwo and a half hours is right for a single 2-quart mould; a skewer should come out clean and the top will be dark and slightly domed. Let it stand five minutes, then turn out. One loaf, roughly eight to ten slices.
- ServingSteamed bread is moist and never crusts. If you want a drier surface, set the unmoulded loaf in a 300F oven for ten minutes. Eat it warm with butter, or alongside baked beans.
Steamed brown bread belongs to New England and its westward spread. The combination of rye or graham, corn meal and wheat is a survival from a time when wheat flour was the expensive grain and corn meal the cheap one, and the steaming rather than baking suits kitchens where a wood range's oven was unreliable but a kettle on the back of the stove could be kept simmering all afternoon. Molasses supplied sweetening and, with the sour milk, the acid that set the soda working; earlier loaves of this kind were commonly raised with yeast and took far longer, before chemical leavens came into general household use around the middle of the nineteenth century. The lard pail named here suggests a receipt written from a particular kitchen rather than a standardised cookbook instruction.