Skip to main content
Bread

Boston Brown Bread

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and milk 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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Combine cornmeal, flour, sour milk, sweet milk, molasses, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.

  2. Mix until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased steaming mold.

Steam and brown

  1. Steam for 3 hours.

  2. After steaming, place the mold in a 400°F (200°C) oven to brown.

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. Flour + milktop 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).

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 bulk and coarse, crumbly texture characteristic of the bread.
Flour
Adds structure so the bread holds its shape after steaming.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to produce gas that lifts the bread.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and liquid so the batter can be poured and steamed through.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a deep, rich flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release carbon dioxide, leavening the batter.

The step that matters

Browning in the oven after steaming. The bread is fully cooked by steam, so the oven step only sets the crust and browns the surface. Too long or too hot can dry the outside, while skipping it leaves the loaf pale and soft.

“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.

More boston brown bread recipes

Ice Cream 3 See all 349 →

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes