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Boston Brown Bread

A yeasted bread made with graham, rye, wheat flour, cornmeal, molasses, and butter, baked for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Heat 1 pint of water to boiling and pour it over the corn meal and salt; let it stand for a few minutes.

  2. Add melted butter, 1 cup of cold water, molasses, graham flour, rye flour, wheat flour, and the yeast dissolved in the remaining ½ cup of lukewarm water; mix thoroughly.

Rise and bake

  1. Half fill well-greased baking tins with covers and let rise for about 2 hours, or until nearly full.

  2. Grease the covers and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 3½ hours; then remove the covers and bake for another 30 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. Wheat + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Rye + corntop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together182 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Flour + ryetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + wheattop 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

Graham flour
Adds a nutty flavour and a hearty, coarse texture to the crumb.
Wheat flour
Provides the gluten structure that holds the loaf together.
Corn meal
Gives the bread its moist, slightly grainy texture and sweet corn flavour.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture to the loaf.
Yeast
Ferments the batter so the loaf rises and becomes lighter.

The step that matters

Half filling the tins before rising. The batter keeps rising in the tins, so filling them only halfway leaves room for expansion. Overfilling can cause the loaves to spill over or become dense. Letting it rise until nearly full gives an even, well-shaped loaf.

“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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