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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A dense, sweet bread made with cornmeal, rye meal, graham flour, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, and salt, boiled in a covered pail.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,320 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. Mix the cornmeal, rye meal, and graham flour together.

  2. Stir in the molasses and sour milk.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in a little water and add it to the mixture along with the salt.

Steam and bake

  1. Pour the batter into a covered pail, leaving room for it to rise.

  2. Place the pail in a kettle of cold water with a ring underneath to prevent burning.

  3. Boil for 4 hours without letting the water stop boiling, and do not remove the cover until done.

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 + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and milk 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

Cornmeal
Provides the coarse body and granular texture of the bread.
Rye meal
Adds a dense, hearty texture and deeper flavor to the loaf.
Graham flour
Contributes structure and a nutty, whole-grain flavor.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the bread.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter and adds tenderness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that makes the bread rise.

The step that matters

Keep the kettle boiling and the cover on. Steaming in a sealed pail cooks the batter evenly without drying it. If the water stops boiling, the bread cooks unevenly and can turn heavy, and lifting the cover lets steam escape and the loaf sink.

“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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