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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A yeast-free bread made with rye and Indian meal, sour milk, molasses, salt, baking soda, and hot water, steamed for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and milk work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 918 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the rye meal, Indian meal, sour milk, and molasses.

  2. Dissolve the salt and baking soda in a little hot water, then add to the mixture.

  3. Stir well and pour into a greased pan.

Rise and steam

  1. Let it rise for one hour.

  2. Steam the bread for four 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. Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

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

  2. Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Rye meal
Gives the loaf its dense, hearty structure and earthy flavour.
Indian meal
Adds body and a coarse, crumbly texture to the batter.
Sour milk
Supplies moisture and acidity that react with the baking soda to lift the loaf.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deep brown colour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that makes the bread rise.

The step that matters

Get the batter into the pan promptly after adding the baking soda. Baking soda reacts with the acid in sour milk as soon as it is mixed in, releasing gas. If the batter waits too long before it is panned and risen, some of that lift is lost, leaving a denser 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.

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