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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A dense bread made with rye, cornmeal, wheat flour, molasses, milk, salt, and baking soda, boiled for hours.

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 ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the rye flour, cornmeal, wheat flour, Puerto Rican molasses, milk, salt, and baking soda dissolved in a little hot water.

  2. Pour the mixture into a very tight mold.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil for 4 hours.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Flour + wheattop 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

Rye flour
Gives the dark color and earthy flavor and forms the bulk of the crumb.
Cornmeal
Adds a coarse, sturdy texture and a grainy bite to the loaf.
Wheat flour
Provides gluten-based structure so the loaf holds together after steaming.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, deep color and moisture, and its acidity activates the baking soda.
Milk
Hydrates the flours and adds moisture and tenderness to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to release gas, helping the bread rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into a very tight mold. A tightly sealed mold traps steam during the long boil, keeping the bread moist and helping it rise evenly. Water seeping into a loose mold would make the loaf soggy and dense.

“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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