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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed loaf made with cornmeal, rye flour, wheat flour, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the cornmeal, rye flour, wheat flour, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, and salt. Mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased loaf pan.

Steam

  1. Steam the bread for 3 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 + wheattop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Indian cornmeal
Gives the loaf its coarse, dense texture and characteristic crumb.
Rye flour
Adds earthy flavour and helps form a dense, moist crumb.
Wheat flour
Provides gluten structure so the loaf holds together while steaming.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture to the loaf.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that raises the bread.

The step that matters

Steam the bread for 3 hours. Steaming keeps the loaf moist and lets the baking soda leaven it gently. The pan must be sealed or covered well so water does not soak in, and the water level must be maintained throughout the long steaming time.

“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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