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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with flour, cornmeal, graham flour, sour milk, molasses, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine flour, cornmeal, graham flour, sour milk, and molasses in a bowl.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the molasses.

  3. Stir the dissolved baking soda into the mixture.

Steam

  1. Pour the batter into three one-pound baking powder tins, filling each half full.

  2. Steam the tins for three 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.

  1. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the loaf together as it steams.
Cornmeal
Adds a coarse, slightly grainy texture to the crumb.
Graham flour
Adds a nutty flavor and a denser, heartier texture to the bread.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and the dark color typical of this bread.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that makes the bread rise.

The step that matters

Stir the dissolved baking soda into the mixture. Baking soda reacts with the acid in the sour milk to release gas. Once the batter is mixed, the rising begins, so the batter should go into the tins promptly to trap that gas and give a light texture.

“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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