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Bread

Boston Brown Bread No. 2

A steamed bread made with cornmeal, rye or graham flour, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, and water.

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 No. 2

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift together cornmeal, rye or graham flour, and salt.

  2. Add molasses, sour milk or cream, and dissolved baking soda; mix well.

  3. Stir in cold water until combined.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-greased pan.

  2. Steam for 4 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. Molasses + milktop 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

Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk or cream and molasses to produce gas that leavens the bread.
Cornmeal
Provides the bulk and coarse, crumbly texture of the loaf.
Rye or graham flour
Adds structure and a denser, wheaty body to the bread.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a deep caramel flavor.
Sour milk or cream
Supplies acidity to activate the baking soda and adds moisture and tenderness.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda and mix it in promptly. Baking soda only leavens when it meets acid. Dissolving it in a little boiling water and mixing it in right away lets it react with the sour milk and molasses while the batter is still gas-forming, so the bread rises rather than staying dense.

“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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