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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

Boston Brown Bread is a loaf made with butter, sugar, salt, flours, cornmeal, baking soda, sour milk, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and salt.

  2. Mix in the all-purpose flour, Graham flour, and cornmeal.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the thick sour milk and add it to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the molasses until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan.

  2. Bake for about 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 sour milk to produce gas, helping the bread rise.
Thick sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tang.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and deep color to the bread.
Cornmeal
Adds a coarse, crumbly texture and body to the loaf.
Graham flour
Contributes a hearty, nutty texture and structure to the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the sour milk. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release carbon dioxide. Dissolving it fully in the sour milk before mixing spreads the reaction evenly, so the loaf rises uniformly rather than developing dense pockets or a bitter taste.

“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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