Skip to main content
Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed loaf made with brown sugar, cornmeal, molasses, graham or rye flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and sour milk.

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

Why it works: Sugar and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the brown sugar, cornmeal, molasses, graham flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Stir in the sour milk until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased loaf pan.

Steam and finish

  1. Steam the bread for 3 to 4 hours until fully cooked.

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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep sweet flavor to the bread.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the bread.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and keeps the crumb moist and tender.
All-purpose flour
Provides gluten-forming structure so the loaf holds together.
Cornmeal
Gives the bread a coarse, slightly crumbly texture.

The step that matters

Steam the bread until fully cooked. Steaming cooks the batter gently with moist heat, so it sets through without drying out. Stopping early leaves the center dense and gummy, since the starches and proteins need sustained heat to set.

“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