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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A moist, sweet bread made with cornmeal, oatmeal, buckwheat or barley flour, molasses, and sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,577 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients: cornmeal, salt, oatmeal, buckwheat or barley flour, baking soda, and baking powder.

  2. Add the sour milk and molasses to the dry mixture and stir until combined.

  3. If desired, fold in raisins.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

Cook

  1. Steam for 3 hours or bake in a preheated moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

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. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Milk + buckwheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  3. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

  4. Buckwheat + raisintop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Buckwheat + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Gives the bread its coarse, hearty texture and grainy structure.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter and tenderize the crumb.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color and a sweet, rich flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that makes the bread rise.
Baking powder
Provides additional lift so the loaf rises during cooking.
Oatmeal
Adds chewy texture and absorbs liquid, giving the loaf body.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan. Batter leavened by baking soda and baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it is mixed with the liquid, so it should go into the pan and into the heat promptly to trap that gas and rise evenly.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, buckwheat, molasses):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Blueberryfits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, buckwheat, molasses. 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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