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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed rye and graham flour bread with molasses, milk, and brown sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift together the rye flour, graham flour, and cornmeal.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the molasses, sweet milk, sour milk, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt until well combined.

  3. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients thoroughly.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased steaming mold.

  2. Steam for 3 hours.

  3. Cool for a few minutes before cutting.

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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 flour
Adds a dense, hearty structure and a distinctive earthy flavor to the loaf.
Graham flour
Contributes coarse bran texture and a nutty, wholesome flavor to the crumb.
Cornmeal
Gives the bread a grainy texture and helps it hold a moist, tender crumb.
Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark color, and moisture that keeps the bread soft.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda, helping the bread rise and adding tang.

The step that matters

Mixing the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients thoroughly. Baking soda reacts with the acid in the sour milk as soon as the batter is combined, so the batter should be mixed evenly to distribute the leavening and produce a uniform rise and crumb.

“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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