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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with cornmeal, Graham flour, molasses, sweet milk, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a bowl, combine cornmeal, Graham flour, molasses, and sweet milk.

  2. Add baking soda and mix well.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

Steam

  1. Cover and steam for 3 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. 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. Molasses + milktop 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 coarse, hearty body and crumb structure of the bread.
Graham flour
Adds gluten-based structure and a nutty, wholesome texture.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep brown color.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour and cornmeal so the batter forms a pourable mix.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to produce gas that lightens the loaf.

The step that matters

Steam for the full time. Steaming gently cooks the batter through with moist heat. Cutting the steaming short leaves the center dense and gummy, and the loaf may not set fully.

“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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