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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed loaf made with Graham flour, sweet milk, cornmeal, molasses, baking soda, salt, and sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the Graham flour, sweet milk, cornmeal, baking soda, molasses, salt, and sour milk.

  2. Mix until well combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased loaf pan.

  2. Steam the bread for 3 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

Graham flour
Provides the bulk and the hearty, whole-grain structure of the loaf.
Cornmeal
Adds a coarse, crumbly texture and body to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lifts the bread.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark color with deep flavor.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.

The step that matters

Steam the bread for 3 hours. Steaming keeps the batter moist and lets the leavening work gently without drying the loaf. Steam must be maintained throughout, since a dry pot or low water will stall rising and leave the bread dense.

“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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