Skip to main content
Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A loaf of brown bread made with cornmeal, rye flour, whole wheat flour, molasses, buttermilk, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rye and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Mix the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the cornmeal, rye flour, whole wheat flour, baking soda, and salt.

  2. In another bowl, combine the molasses and buttermilk.

  3. Gradually add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, stirring until well combined.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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 + wheattop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Molasses + buttermilktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Gives the bread its coarse, grainy texture and sturdy crumb.
Rye flour
Adds a dense structure and a deep, earthy flavour to the crumb.
Whole wheat flour
Provides gluten and a nutty flavour, giving the loaf some structure.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark colour with a rich flavour.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that react with the baking soda to lift the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas, causing the bread to rise.

The step that matters

Combining the wet and dry ingredients. Stirring only until combined keeps the batter tender. Overmixing develops gluten in the wheat and rye flours, which can make the loaf tough and dense. Adding the wet ingredients gradually helps the baking soda react evenly throughout the batter.

“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

Wheat BreadWheat Bread65 recipesWhole Wheat BreadWhole Wheat Bread55 recipesBarley Wheat BreadBarley Wheat Bread6 recipesCornbreadCornbread345 recipes