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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A baked bread made with corn meal, graham flour, molasses, raisins, and sour milk.

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

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.

Mix the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine corn meal, graham flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, molasses, sour milk, and raisins.

  2. Add warm water gradually to create a batter thin enough to pour.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a covered dish, filling it halfway.

  2. Place the dish in a pan of boiling water, ensuring the water comes more than halfway up the dish.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 2 to 3 hours, depending on the size of the loaf.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Corn meal
Provides the bulk and coarse, crumbly structure of the bread.
Graham flour
Adds structure and a nutty, wholesome texture to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lightens the loaf.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and keeps the bread moist and tender.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the bread.

The step that matters

Keep the batter thin enough to pour and the water level high. A batter that is too thick will bake dense, and a pan of water that does not reach over halfway up the dish lets the bread dry out. The steamed, moist environment is what gives this bread its tender, even crumb.

“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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