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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and milk work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 918 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, combine cornmeal, rye meal, molasses, salt, ginger, sweet milk, and baking soda. Mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased steaming mold.

Steam

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

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

  2. Rye + gingertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together54 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Ginger + milktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,519 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 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 bread and gives it its coarse, hearty structure.
Rye meal
Adds a dense, earthy flavour and helps give the bread its dark, close crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and the bread's dark colour.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the cornmeal and rye so the batter can set into a moist loaf.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and liquid to lighten the batter and help it rise.

The step that matters

Steaming for the full time. Cornmeal and rye need prolonged, gentle moist heat to set fully. Lifting the lid or letting the water boil dry can leave the bread gummy or underbaked in the centre.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rye, molasses, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rye, molasses, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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