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Boston Brown Bread. Raised with Yeast.

A yeast‑raised bread made with cornmeal, graham, rye, and white flour, sweetened with molasses and burnt sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and rye match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,320 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread. Raised with Yeast.

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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Pour boiling water over the cornmeal to scald it, and stir the mixture in a pan.

  2. Add molasses, salt, and burnt sugar coloring to the scalded cornmeal.

  3. Let the mixture cool until it is lukewarm.

  4. Strain in the yeast and mix well.

  5. Add the graham flour and rye flour, and mix until combined.

Rise and bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

  2. Let it rise until doubled in size.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 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. Flour + ryetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  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
Scalded with boiling water, it forms the moist, tender body of the bread.
Graham flour
Adds structure and a nutty, wholesome texture to the batter.
Rye flour
Contributes a dense crumb and a distinctive, slightly tangy flavor.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, lifting the batter so the loaf rises.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and the dark color and deep flavor typical of the bread.

The step that matters

Let the scalded cornmeal cool until lukewarm. Yeast is killed by very hot liquid, so the mixture must be cool enough before the yeast is added, or the loaf will not rise.

“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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