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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed and baked bread made with wheat flour, cornmeal, Graham flour, molasses, lard, sour milk, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 465 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. 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.

Prepare the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the wheat flour, corn meal, and Graham flour.

  2. Add the molasses, baking soda, salt, lard, sour milk, and enough water to form a stiff sponge.

  3. Pour the mixture into brown bread tins.

Steam and bake

  1. Steam the tins for 2 hours.

  2. Remove from the steamer and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 10 minutes.

Serve

  1. Take the bread out of the tins and serve hot.

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. Wheat + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 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

Wheat flour
Provides the main structure that holds the loaf together as it steams.
Corn meal
Adds a coarse, crumbly texture and a slightly gritty bite to the loaf.
Graham flour
Contributes a nutty flavour and a denser, more textured crumb.
New orleans molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep, sweet, slightly bitter flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and tenderises the crumb while adding moisture.

The step that matters

Keeping the tins covered and steaming gently. Steam cooks the batter slowly and keeps it moist; if water boils dry or the tins are left uncovered, the loaf dries out and may not set evenly through the centre.

“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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