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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A dense bread made with cornmeal, graham flour, rye flour, sweet milk, sour milk, molasses, salt, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and rye 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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Sift together the cornmeal, graham flour, and rye flour.

  2. In a large bowl, beat the sifted flour with sweet milk, molasses, and salt.

  3. Add the sour milk and baking soda, mixing well.

  4. Pour the mixture into a covered pail.

Steam the bread

  1. Place the pail in a kettle of cold water and boil for four hours.

  2. Keep adding hot water to the kettle as it boils away and keep the kettle covered.

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 + ryetop 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
Gives the loaf its coarse texture and sturdy crumb.
Graham flour
Adds a nutty flavour and a hearty, dense structure.
Rye flour
Adds earthy flavour and helps give the loaf its dense, moist crumb.
Sour milk
Reacts with baking soda to lift the batter and adds slight tang.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that leavens the bread.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour, and moisture to the loaf.

The step that matters

Keep the kettle topped up with hot water. Steaming for four hours needs steady heat and moisture. If the water drops and the pail is exposed or the kettle boils dry, the bread can dry out or cook unevenly.

“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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