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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with sour milk, molasses, flour, salt, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the sour milk, molasses, flour, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in 1 tablespoon of warm water and add it to the mixture.

  3. Beat the mixture thoroughly.

Steam

  1. Pour the batter into a well-buttered mold.

  2. 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.

  1. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Milk and flour 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

Sour milk
Provides moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the bread.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and the dark color and flavor typical of this bread.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure that holds the bread together as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that makes the bread rise.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda and beat the batter thoroughly. Baking soda must be evenly distributed through the batter so it reacts with the acid throughout. Uneven mixing leaves pockets of gas and uneven rise or dense spots.

“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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