Why it works: Rye and milk work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 918 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓
Boston Brown Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a large bowl, combine the Indian meal, rye meal, molasses, and sweet milk.
Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the mixture. Beat the mixture well until fully combined.
Steam
Pour the batter into a tin pudding boiler and steam for 4 hours.
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.
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Rye + milktop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together918 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together804 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,243 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Indian meal
- Forms the main body of the bread, giving it its coarse, hearty structure.
- Rye meal
- Adds a deeper, earthy flavour and helps give the bread its dense texture.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness and moisture, and contributes to the bread's dark colour and flavour.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidity in the molasses to produce gas, lightening the batter.
The step that matters
Steaming for the full time. Steaming gently sets the cornmeal and rye batter into a moist, dense loaf. Cutting the time short leaves the centre gummy and underset, while the steam must stay continuous so the pudding boiler does not run 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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