Skip to main content
Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A moist rye and corn bread baked after steaming, flavored with molasses and sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rye and corn work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 182 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk.

  2. In a bowl, combine the rye meal, corn meal, molasses, and salt.

  3. Add the sour milk mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased pan.

Steam and bake

  1. Steam for four hours.

  2. Bake for twenty 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.

  1. Rye + corntop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together182 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn meal
Provides the bulk and the coarse, crumbly structure of the loaf.
Rye meal
Adds flavor and a denser texture to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Sour milk
Supplies moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the loaf.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk. Baking soda must react with the acid in sour milk to leaven the batter. Dissolving it fully first distributes the gas-producing reaction evenly, so the bread rises uniformly rather than developing dense or streaky pockets.

“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