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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

Boston Brown Bread is a steamed loaf made from cornmeal, graham flour, sweet and sour milk, molasses, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, combine cornmeal, graham flour, sweet milk, sour milk, molasses, baking soda, and salt, and mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased loaf pan.

  3. Cover and steam or boil for 3 hours.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

Cornmeal
Provides the bulk and coarse, crumbly texture of the bread.
Graham flour
Adds structure and a nutty, wholesome flavor to the loaf.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift and lighten the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, deep color, and moisture to the bread.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that leavens the loaf.

The step that matters

Cover and steam or boil for 3 hours. The pan must be sealed tightly so steam cooks the batter evenly and it does not dry out or sink. Keep the water level steady so the loaf stays moist through the long cook.

“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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