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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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

Make the batter

  1. Mix cornmeal, sweet milk, graham flour, salt, baking soda, New Orleans molasses, and sour milk in a large bowl until well combined.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a steamer.

  2. Cover the top of the steamer with a cloth before placing the lid on.

  3. Steam for three 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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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. 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

Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas, helping the bread rise.
Graham flour
Provides the bulk and the coarse, hearty texture of the bread.
Cornmeal
Adds body and a grainy texture to the crumb.
New orleans molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to leaven the batter and adds tang.

The step that matters

Covering the steamer with a cloth before the lid. The cloth absorbs condensation that would otherwise drip onto the bread's surface, keeping the top moist and even. Steaming keeps the batter moist while it sets, so a steady, covered steam is needed throughout.

“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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