Skip to main content
Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with sour milk, molasses, corn syrup, cornmeal, graham flour, rye flour, raisins, and baking soda.

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

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine sour milk, baking soda, molasses, and corn syrup.

  2. Stir in yellow cornmeal, graham flour, rye flour, salt, and raisins until well mixed.

  3. Pour the batter into covered cans.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the cans for 2 hours.

  2. Remove from steam and let cool before serving.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Corn + ryetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together182 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Flour + ryetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + syruptop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together272 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas that lifts the bread.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release carbon dioxide, leavening the batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour, and a deep sweet flavour.
Yellow cornmeal
Adds coarse texture and body to the batter.
Graham flour
Contributes a nutty flavour and a hearty, coarse crumb.
Rye flour
Adds a tangy flavour and a dense, moist crumb.

The step that matters

Steam the cans for 2 hours. Steaming keeps the batter moist and cooks it gently without drying the crust. Sealed cans must stay covered so steam cooks the bread evenly, and the baking soda reaction needs the batter mixed promptly so the rise is not lost.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, molasses, corn, syrup, flour, rye):

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Cherryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, molasses, corn, syrup, flour, rye. 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.

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