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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A molasses-based bread baked after steaming, made with rye meal and whole wheat flour.

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

Mix the batter

  1. Mix the salt, melted butter, baking soda, rye meal, and white whole wheat flour in a bowl.

  2. In another bowl, combine the molasses and ½ cup of milk.

  3. Combine the two mixtures and add the remaining milk and melted butter.

  4. Pour the batter into greased tins.

Steam and dry

  1. Steam the tins or surround them with boiling water for five hours.

  2. Remove from the can and dry in a 350°F (175°C) oven for five minutes.

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. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wheat + flourtop 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

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.
Rye meal
Gives a dense, moist crumb and a deep, earthy flavor.
White whole wheat flour
Provides the main structure of the bread's crumb.
Milk
Hydrates the flours and keeps the batter moist.
Melted butter
Adds fat, which tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.

The step that matters

Keeping the steam going for five hours. Steaming cooks the batter gently and evenly. If the boiling water drops low, the tins are heated unevenly, and the bread can set unevenly or turn out dry.

“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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