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Steamed Boston Brown Bread with Cream

A steamed rye and corn bread sweetened with molasses and enriched with cream and eggs.

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

Steamed Boston Brown Bread with Cream

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Mix the batter

  1. Sift the rye meal, corn meal, and salt together in a bowl.

  2. Add the molasses and beaten egg yolks, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the thin cream until combined.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  5. Fold the beaten egg whites into the mixture gently.

  6. Pour the batter into a buttered mold.

Steam and bake

  1. Steam the bread for three hours.

  2. After steaming, bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for one hour.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,408 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Corn + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Eggs
Egg whites whipped to stiff peaks lighten the batter and help it rise.
Rye meal
Provides the dark, earthy flavour and the bulk of the bread's structure.
Corn meal
Adds coarse texture and body to the crumb.
New orleans molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and a rich, slightly bitter flavour.
Thin cream
Adds moisture and fat, keeping the crumb tender.

The step that matters

Folding the beaten egg whites into the mixture gently. Deflating the whipped whites by overmixing removes the air bubbles that give lightness, leaving a denser loaf.

“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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