Skip to main content
Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed rye and graham flour bread sweetened with molasses and baked in a mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rye and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,320 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix and sift the rye meal, graham flour, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Add the molasses and milk, stirring well until combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered mold, filling it no more than two-thirds full.

Steam

  1. Cover the mold tightly with string and steam for 3½ 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. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that leavens the dense batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture, and its acidity helps activate the baking soda.
Sour milk
Provides acidity to react with the baking soda and moisture to hydrate the flours.
Rye meal
Gives the bread its dense texture and characteristic earthy flavor.
Graham flour
Adds coarse texture and nutty flavor while contributing structure to the loaf.

The step that matters

Filling the mold no more than two-thirds full. The batter rises considerably as the leavening gas forms during steaming. Overfilling can cause the batter to spill out or cook unevenly, so leaving headroom allows space for expansion.

“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.

More boston brown bread recipes

Ice Cream 3 See all 349 →

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes