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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A rye and Indian meal bread steamed for four hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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. In a bowl, combine the rye meal, Indian meal, sour milk, and molasses.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in a little hot water and add it to the mixture along with the salt.

  3. Stir well and pour the batter into a greased pan.

Rise and steam

  1. Let the batter 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 bread its dense, hearty structure and earthy flavor.
Indian meal
Adds body and coarse texture, giving the loaf its characteristic crumb.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to produce gas, helping the bread rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep dark color to the bread.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to release carbon dioxide for lift.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and stirred evenly through the batter, or pockets of unreacted soda can leave bitter spots and uneven rising. Reacting with the sour milk's acid is what lifts the dense 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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