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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A moist rye and Indian meal bread steamed for four 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

Mix the batter

  1. Combine rye meal and Indian meal in a bowl.

  2. Add sour milk and molasses, mix well.

  3. Dissolve baking soda in hot water, add to mixture.

  4. Stir until well combined.

Rise and steam

  1. Pour batter into a greased pan, let 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 its characteristic earthy flavour.
Indian meal
Provides the coarse body and crumb that holds the steamed loaf together.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter and adds tang.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture to the finished bread.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas, which leavens the batter.

The step that matters

Dissolve baking soda in hot water before adding. Dissolving the soda evenly prevents pockets of bitter, unreacted soda and spreads the leavening reaction through the batter so the loaf rises uniformly.

“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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