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Brown Bread
Two and one-half cups sour milk, and one-half cup molasses; into these put one heaping tea-spoon soda, two cups corn-meal, one cup Graham flour and one tea-spoon salt. Use coffee-cups. Steam three hours, and afterwards brown in oven. -Mrs. M. Irvine, De Kalb, Mo.
A steamed brown bread of the New England type, leavened only by soda reacting with sour milk and molasses. Nothing here is difficult, but the batter must be steamed in a covered mold, not baked, or it will not set properly.
- Sour milkThis means naturally soured raw milk, which no longer exists on shop shelves. Cultured buttermilk is the direct substitute; whole milk soured with a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice per cup also works, though it gives a thinner batter.
- Graham flourCoarse whole-wheat flour, milled with the bran and germ retained. Ordinary whole-wheat flour is close enough; stone-ground gives the nubbly texture the original expects.
- "Use coffee-cups"The instruction tells you which vessel to measure with. Period coffee cups were generally larger than teacups, but sizes varied from household to household and no fixed figure can be given, so the amounts are approximate by modern standards. Measuring everything in one vessel keeps the proportions right whatever its size.
- Soda quantityA heaping teaspoon of baking soda is a lot for this volume, and it depends on both the molasses and the sour milk being acidic enough to neutralise it. If your buttermilk is mild, a level teaspoon will taste cleaner.
- The moldFill a greased pudding mold or coffee tin no more than two-thirds full; this quantity of batter needs a mold of about two quarts, or two smaller ones. Cover it tightly with a lid or a doubled sheet of foil tied down, so the batter is sealed against condensation from the lid of the steamer.
- Steaming setupStand the mold on a rack in a deep pot with boiling water reaching halfway up its side, cover, and keep the water at a bare simmer. Top up with boiling water as it evaporates; three hours will exhaust a shallow pan.
- BrowningAfter steaming, uncover and set the loaf in a 350F oven for 10 to 15 minutes to dry and colour the crust. It is done when a skewer comes out clean and the surface no longer looks wet.
- Yield and servingOne loaf, about eight to ten slices. Steamed brown bread is traditionally cut thick with butter while still warm, and it slices far more cleanly the next day.
Steamed brown bread belongs to the New England kitchen, where molasses from the West Indies trade and locally milled cornmeal were cheaper and more reliable than wheat flour, and where a covered mold set over water could be cooked on a stovetop without heating a large oven. Its appearance in a Southern compilation, credited to a contributor in De Kalb, Missouri, is a reminder that these late nineteenth-century books were assembled from readers' mailed-in receipts and circulated recipes freely across regions. The combination of cornmeal, Graham flour, molasses and soured milk also marks it as a product of the Graham movement's influence, which from the 1830s onward pressed American households toward unsifted whole-grain flour on health grounds.