Name: Boston Brown Bread
Ingredients: 1 heaping coffee cup cornmeal; 1 heaping coffee cup rye meal (or rye flour); 1 heaping coffee cup Graham meal; 2 cups New Orleans or Porto Rico molasses; 2 cups sweet milk; 1 cup sour milk; 2 teaspoons baking soda; 1 teaspoon salt

Why it works: Coffee and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,202 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

1 heaping coffee cup cornmeal
1 heaping coffee cup rye meal (or rye flour)
1 heaping coffee cup Graham meal
2 cups New Orleans or Porto Rico molasses
2 cups sweet milk
1 cup sour milk
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Directions

Prepare the batter

Sift together the cornmeal, rye meal, and Graham meal until well combined.
In a large bowl, beat together the sifted meals, molasses, sweet milk, sour milk, baking soda, and salt until smooth.
Pour the mixture into a tin form or a covered tin pail, leaving room for it to swell.

Steam and finish

Place the form in a kettle of boiling water and cook for 4 hours.
Ensure the water does not boil over the top of the form and does not completely evaporate.
After cooking, remove the lid and place the bread in a preheated oven for a few minutes to dry the top before serving.

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.

Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,202 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Coffee + molassestop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together640 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Molasses + milktop 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

Cornmeal: Provides the coarse, crumbly body and the characteristic grainy texture of the bread.
Rye meal: Adds a dense, earthy flavour and helps give the loaf its firm, moist crumb.
Graham meal: Contributes a nutty, slightly sweet wheat flavour and adds body to the crumb.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture, and deepens the flavour of the bread.
Baking soda: Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas, helping the loaf rise and swell.
Sour milk: Its acidity activates the baking soda and tenderises the crumb while adding tang.

The step that matters

Keeping the kettle water at a steady level. The bread is cooked by gentle steaming for 4 hours. If the water boils over the form or evaporates completely, the batter is disturbed or the bread cooks unevenly, so the water level must be watched throughout.

“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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Boston Brown Bread