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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A loaf of bread made with rye flour, brown sugar, graham flour, cornmeal, buttermilk, molasses, and optional raisins, figs, nuts, and caraway seeds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,320 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the rye flour, brown sugar, graham flour, cornmeal, baking soda, and salt.

  2. In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, eggs, soft butter, molasses, and nutmeg.

  3. Gradually add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, mixing well.

  4. Fold in the raisins or figs, nuts, and caraway seeds if using.

Steam

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Rye + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together52 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Graham flour
Gives the loaf its hearty, slightly coarse structure and nutty flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk and molasses to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and tang, and its acid activates the baking soda.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the crumb as it cooks.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and the dark colour typical of this bread.
Soft butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.

The step that matters

Steaming for the full 3 hours. Gentle, steady moist heat cooks this dense, leavened batter through without drying its surface. Cutting the steaming short can leave the centre gummy and underset.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rye, flour, sugar, buttermilk, egg, butter, molasses):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Allspicefits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against rye, flour, sugar, buttermilk, egg, butter, molasses. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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