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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with Boston Brown Bread flour, molasses, and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,429 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour, molasses, and cold water thoroughly.

  2. Pour the mixture into two greased 1-pound baking powder cans, filling them about halfway.

Steam and serve

  1. Cover the cans and place them in a kettle of boiling water.

  2. Steam for two hours.

  3. To slice smoothly, dip a knife in cold water.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Bread + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Bread + molassestop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Bread and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,383 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

Boston brown bread flour
Provides the structure and bulk that set the loaf as it steams.
New orleans molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and the dark color and flavor of the bread.
Cold water
Hydrates the flour so the batter holds together and steams into a moist loaf.

The step that matters

Keeping the cans covered and the water boiling during steaming. Steam is what cooks and raises this batter in its cans. If the cans are uncovered or the water stops boiling, the loaf cooks unevenly and can turn out dense or gummy.

“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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