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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with cornmeal, graham flour, rye meal, molasses, baking soda, salt, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and rye 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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine cornmeal, graham flour, rye meal, molasses, baking soda, and salt.

  2. Add boiling water gradually until the mixture reaches the consistency of pancake batter.

Steam

  1. Pour the batter into a greased steaming mold.

  2. Steam 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 + ryetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 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. Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 gluten-bearing structure and a nutty, wholesome flavor.
Rye meal
Adds a dense texture and earthy flavor to the loaf.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lighten the loaf and help it rise.

The step that matters

Add the boiling water gradually. Adding water slowly lets you judge the batter's consistency. Too little water leaves a stiff, dry loaf, while too much makes it heavy and wet. Pour it in stages, stopping when the batter looks like pancake batter.

“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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