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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A sweet bread made with sour milk, molasses, and graham flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour 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

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat your oven to 350 °F (175 °C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the sour milk and 1 teaspoon of baking soda.

  3. In another bowl, combine the baking molasses and the remaining teaspoon of baking soda.

  4. Beat the mixtures together well.

  5. Add the salt, graham flour, and baking powder to the mixture and stir until combined.

  6. Pour the batter into a greased pan.

Steam and bake

  1. Steam for 2 ½ hours.

  2. Remove the lids and place the pan in the oven for 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Molasses + flourtop 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).

Milk and flour 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

Sour milk
Reacts with the baking soda to produce gas, helping the bread rise and giving it a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce carbon dioxide, leavening the batter.
Graham flour
Provides the bulk and structure of the bread, along with its hearty, coarse texture.
Baking molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark color to the bread.
Baking powder
Provides additional leavening so the bread rises further in the oven.

The step that matters

Combining the sour milk and baking soda before adding the rest. The baking soda reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas. Mixing it in as directed and keeping the batter moving to trap that gas helps the bread rise properly rather than turning out dense.

“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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