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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

Boston Brown Bread is a steamed and baked bread made with cornmeal, rye flour, molasses, sour milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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

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

  2. In another bowl, combine the molasses and half of the sour milk.

  3. Mix the two mixtures together, then add the remaining sour milk and melted butter.

Steam and finish

  1. Pour the batter into greased baking powder cans.

  2. Steam the cans for three hours.

  3. Remove the bread from the cans 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Rye flour
Provides the structure and the dense, hearty crumb typical of this bread.
Cornmeal
Adds a coarse texture and body to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to lift and lighten the batter.
New orleans molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a deep, rich flavor.
Sour milk
Supplies moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Steam the cans for three hours. Steaming keeps the batter moist while it sets and rises gently. Water must not boil dry or the bread will dry out and turn dense.

“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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