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Bread

Boston Brown Bread, III

A crustless loaf made from Indian meal, rye flour, wheat flour, molasses, milk, salt, and baking soda, boiled for three hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread, III

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Mix and pour

  1. Combine Indian meal, rye flour, wheat flour, molasses, milk, salt, and baking soda in a bowl.

  2. Pour the mixture into a long tin pail.

Steam

  1. Place the pail in a pot with enough water to keep it boiling.

  2. Cover the pail tightly to ensure it is water tight.

  3. Boil for three hours to achieve a crustless loaf.

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 + wheattop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Indian meal
Provides the bulk and coarse, grainy texture of the loaf.
Rye flour
Adds structure and a dense, hearty crumb with its own flavour.
Wheat flour
Contributes gluten for some structure and a lighter crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and the dark colour of the loaf.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to lift and lighten the batter.

The step that matters

Cover the pail tightly. A loose lid lets steam escape and water seep in, so the bread can turn soggy or dry unevenly. A tight seal keeps the moisture steady while the loaf steams through.

“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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