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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed and baked bread made with sour milk, molasses, graham flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

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

Prepare

  1. Foam the sour milk and baking soda separately.

  2. In a bowl, combine graham flour, baking powder, and salt.

Mix and shape

  1. Add the foamed sour milk and molasses to the dry ingredients and mix well.

  2. Pour the batter into 1-pound baking powder cans.

Steam and bake

  1. Steam the cans for 2½ hours.

  2. Bake the cans 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
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas, helping the bread rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release carbon dioxide, leavening the batter.
Graham flour
Provides the bulk and coarse, hearty structure of the bread.
Baking molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep brown color to the bread.
Baking powder
Provides additional leavening so the batter rises in the cans.

The step that matters

Foam the sour milk and baking soda separately. The soda must react with the acidic sour milk before mixing so the gas is trapped in the batter and leavens the bread. Combining them late or without foaming can leave the bread 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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