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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed molasses bread made with white flour, Graham flour, yellow Indian meal, milk, molasses, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the white flour, Graham flour, and Indian meal.

  2. Sift the mixture together.

  3. Stir in the milk, molasses, and baking soda, and mix until well combined.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a steamer.

  2. Boil for three hours, ensuring the lid is tightly secured to prevent water from entering.

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. Milk + molassestop 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

Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity to produce gas, helping the bread rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture, and its acidity activates the baking soda.
Milk
Hydrates the flours so the batter forms a moist, pourable mixture.
White flour
Provides gluten-forming structure to hold the bread together.
Graham flour
Adds coarse texture and a nutty, wholesome flavour to the bread.
Indian meal
Adds cornmeal texture and body, giving the bread its characteristic crumb.

The step that matters

Keeping the steamer sealed and water out. Steaming cooks the bread gently with moist heat over a long time. If the lid is loose or water enters, the bread can turn soggy and uneven, so the seal must stay tight throughout the three hours.

“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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