Skip to main content
Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed and baked bread made with rye, cornmeal, wheat flour, molasses, and sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rye and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Mix the rye meal, cornmeal, whole wheat flour, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in warm water and add it to the sour milk or buttermilk.

  3. Stir in the molasses until well blended.

  4. Pour the wet mixture over the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Steam

  1. Transfer the batter into baking powder cans and steam for 1 hour.

  2. Remove the covers and let the bread cool.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 30 minutes before serving.

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 + wheattop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rye meal
Gives the dense, hearty structure and a robust, slightly sour flavor.
Yellow cornmeal
Adds a coarse, crumbly texture and a sweet corn flavor to the crumb.
Whole wheat flour
Provides structure and a nutty flavor while helping hold the loaf together.
Sour milk or buttermilk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda, producing gas that lifts the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to release carbon dioxide, causing the bread to rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and the dark color typical of this bread.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda and combine it with the sour milk. Baking soda reacts with the acid in sour milk or buttermilk to release carbon dioxide gas. Dissolving it evenly and mixing promptly keeps that gas distributed through the batter, so the bread rises and gets an even crumb rather than dense pockets or a flat loaf.

“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

Wheat BreadWheat Bread65 recipesWhole Wheat BreadWhole Wheat Bread55 recipesBarley Wheat BreadBarley Wheat Bread6 recipesCornbreadCornbread345 recipes