Name: Boston Brown Bread
Ingredients: 2 cups Graham flour; 2 cups cornmeal; 1 cup New Orleans molasses; 3 cups milk; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 2 teaspoons cream of tartar

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

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

In a large bowl, mix the Graham flour, cornmeal, molasses, milk, baking soda, and cream of tartar until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a greased loaf pan.

Steam and bake

Steam the loaf for 5 hours, keeping it covered and ensuring the water is boiling.
After steaming, bake the loaf in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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.

Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,429 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together29,399 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Molasses + creamtop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,408 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,481 recipes

Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, 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

Graham flour: Provides the bulk and the hearty, whole-grain structure of the loaf.
Cornmeal: Adds body and a coarse, crumbly texture to the crumb.
New orleans molasses: Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the loaf.
Milk: Hydrates the flour and cornmeal to form a pourable batter.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in the batch to produce gas that lifts the loaf.
Cream of tartar: Acidifies the batter so the baking soda can react and leaven the bread.

The step that matters

Keeping the steaming water boiling. Steaming cooks the batter gently and evenly with moist heat. If the water stops boiling, the temperature drops and the long steam time becomes uneven, which can leave the loaf dense or undercooked.

“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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Boston Brown Bread