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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed rye and cornmeal bread flavored with molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,320 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. Mix and sift the dry ingredients together.

  2. Add the molasses and milk, stirring until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered mold, filling it no more than two-thirds full.

Steam

  1. Butter the cover of the mold and tie it down with string.

  2. Steam the bread for 3½ hours in a kettle of boiling water, ensuring the water comes halfway up the mold.

  3. Cover the kettle closely and add more boiling water as needed.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Rye meal
Gives the bread its dense, hearty structure and earthy flavor.
Granulated cornmeal
Adds coarse texture and body to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to lift and lighten the loaf.
Graham flour
Adds bulk and a nutty, slightly coarse texture to the crumb.
Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark color and moisture.
Milk
Hydrates the dry ingredients and, when sour, activates the baking soda.

The step that matters

Keep the steaming water level and kettle covered. Steam is what cooks this dense batter through over a long time. If the water boils low or drops below the mold's halfway mark, the bread cooks unevenly and can turn out gummy or underdone at the centre.

“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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