Skip to main content
Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed and baked bread made with rye, white flour, Indian meal, molasses, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Prepare

  1. Mix and sift the rye flour, white flour, Indian meal, and salt.

  2. Add the molasses, baking soda (or baking powder), sour milk (or sweet milk), and water. Mix well.

Steam and bake

  1. Turn the mixture into a well-buttered mold, cover it, and steam for 4 hours.

  2. Remove from the mold and bake for 20 minutes.

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 flour
Adds a dense, hearty structure and a distinctive earthy flavour.
Indian meal
Gives the bread its coarse, grainy texture and body.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Sour milk
Provides liquid and acidity that activates the baking soda.

The step that matters

Steaming the mold for 4 hours. Steaming keeps the dense batter moist and cooks it through gently. If the water boils dry or the mold is not well covered, the bread can dry out or turn out unevenly cooked.

“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

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes