Skip to main content
Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A bread made with graham flour, cornmeal, molasses, sour milk, and water, baked or steamed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix graham flour, cornmeal, salt, molasses, sour milk, hot water, and cold water.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the hot water before adding it to the mixture.

Steam or bake

  1. Divide the batter into four one-pound baking powder cans with tightly fitting covers.

  2. Steam the cans for 3 hours or bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 1.5 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

Graham flour
Provides the main structure and the coarse, hearty body of the bread.
Cornmeal
Adds a grainy texture and helps the loaf hold a crumbly, moist crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and the dark color typical of this bread.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda, producing gas that helps the bread rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to leaven the batter.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the hot water first. Baking soda must be evenly dispersed to react with the acid in the sour milk. Dissolving it first spreads the reaction through the batter, giving an even rise and avoiding pockets of bitter soda or dense spots.

“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