Skip to main content
Main

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with cornmeal, rye flour, molasses, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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. In a large bowl, combine cornmeal, rye flour, salt, and baking powder.

  2. In another bowl, mix the beaten eggs, molasses, and milk.

  3. Combine the wet and dry ingredients until well mixed.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a large covered tin.

  2. Let it steam overnight.

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 + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Cornmeal
Provides the main body and coarse, sturdy crumb of the bread.
Rye flour
Adds structure and a deeper, earthy flavor to the crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help give the loaf its set structure.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the bread.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the batter so it rises as it cooks.
Milk
Hydrates the flours and keeps the batter moist during steaming.

The step that matters

Keep the tin covered while steaming. A covered tin traps steam around the batter, cooking it gently and keeping it moist. Uncovered, the steam escapes and the bread can dry out and set unevenly.

“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.

More boston brown bread recipes

Ice Cream 3 See all 349 →

You might also like

Molasses SauceMolasses Sauce32 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes