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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed and baked cornmeal and graham flour bread sweetened with molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,165 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift the corn meal and graham flour together.

  2. Add the molasses and cold water.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in a little hot water. Add the dissolved baking soda and salt to the mixture. Mix well.

  4. Butter a pan.

Steam and finish

  1. Set the pan in a steamer.

  2. Steam for five hours.

  3. Place the bread in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about twenty minutes, or until slightly browned.

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. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Corn + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together644 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

Corn meal
Forms the bulk of the crumb, giving the bread its coarse, dense texture.
Graham flour
Adds structure and a nutty, wholesome flavor to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lift and lighten the dense batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, sweetness, and dark color, and reacts with the baking soda.

The step that matters

Steaming for the full five hours. Steam must stay steady and the pan must remain covered so the batter cooks through moist. Too little steam or heat loss leaves the bread gummy or underbaked in the centre, since the dense batter needs long, even 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.

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