Name: Boston Brown Bread
Ingredients: 3 teacups corn meal; 2 cups boiling sweet milk; 1 teacup molasses; 1 cup wheat flour; 1 cup sour milk; 1 teaspoon baking soda; ½ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Corn and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 465 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, combine corn meal and boiling sweet milk.
Once cooled, add molasses, wheat flour, and sour milk.
In the sour milk, stir in baking soda and salt.

Steam

Pour the mixture into a greased mold and steam for 3 hours.

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.

Corn + wheattop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together465 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,418 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,165 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn meal: Forms the main body and bulk of the bread's crumb.
Wheat flour: Adds some structure so the crumb holds together.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark color with a rich flavor.
Sour milk: Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the bread rise.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into the mold promptly after adding baking soda. Baking soda starts releasing gas as soon as it meets the acidic sour milk. If the batter waits, some of that lift is lost before steaming, which can leave the bread denser.

“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 →

Corn Fritters203 recipes

Cream of Corn Soup50 recipes

Green Corn Soup46 recipes

Cornmeal Gruel41 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

Boston Brown Bread