Skip to main content
Main

Boston Brown Bread

A dense, molasses‑rich bread made with cornmeal, rye, graham, and wheat flours, baked by steaming in molds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rye and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Soak the stale cake in water and let it stand for a day until sour.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the yeast and mix it with the cornmeal and flours to form a dough.

  3. Work in the molasses, soaked cake, and salt.

Steam and bake

  1. Fill the mixture into round molds that are 6 inches across the top, 4 inches at the bottom, and 6 inches deep, with a tight-fitting lid.

  2. Set the molds into a vessel partly filled with water and steam them over the fire or in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 4 hours, keeping the water boiling.

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 + wheattop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 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).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Forms the bulk of the dough and gives the bread its coarse, crumbly texture.
Rye meal
Adds a dense, earthy flavour and helps the crumb hold together.
Graham flour
Contributes a nutty flavour and a slightly coarse, tender texture.
Wheat flour
Provides gluten structure so the dough holds its shape during steaming.
New orleans molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour, moisture and a deep caramel flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour soaked cake to lighten the crumb and aid rising.

The step that matters

Keeping the water boiling during steaming. The molds cook by steam, so if the water drops below a boil the temperature falls and the bread turns out dense and gummy. Topping up the water keeps the steam steady for the full cooking time.

“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

Molasses SauceMolasses Sauce32 recipesWheat GruelWheat Gruel6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes