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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A dense bread made with white and graham flour, cornmeal, sour milk, molasses, raisins, and baking soda, baked after steaming.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in boiling water.

  2. Mix in the molasses and beat well.

  3. Combine the flours, corn meal, brown sugar, and salt in a large bowl.

  4. Pour the molasses mixture over the dry ingredients.

  5. Add the sour milk and stir thoroughly.

Steam and bake

  1. Steam the mixture for 3 hours.

  2. Transfer to the oven and bake for 10 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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

White flour
Provides the main structure that holds the bread together as it cooks.
Graham flour
Adds a coarser texture and nutty flavor while contributing to the loaf's structure.
Corn meal
Adds a grainy texture and helps give the loaf its crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to release gas, which lightens the loaf.
Sour milk
Supplies moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and the dark color typical of this bread.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda and combining the batter. Baking soda reacts with the acid in the sour milk and molasses to release carbon dioxide. Gas is produced as soon as the ingredients meet, so the batter should be combined thoroughly and placed to cook without delay to keep the rise.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, corn, milk, molasses, sugar):

  1. Raisinthe original
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, corn, milk, molasses, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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