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
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine cornmeal, graham flour, molasses, warm water, and baking soda until well combined.
Pour the batter into a greased steaming mold.
Steam and serve
Steam for 3 hours.
Let cool before serving.
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.
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Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,429 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cornmeal
- Provides the coarse, crumbly body that gives the bread its structure.
- Graham flour
- Adds structure and a nutty, wholesome texture to the crumb.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the batter.
The step that matters
Steaming the batter for the full time. The bread cooks gently by steam inside the sealed mold, so the steam must be kept steady for the whole 3 hours. If the steam drops or the mold is opened early, the batter can stay wet and dense in the center.
“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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