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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with egg, sweet and sour milk, wheat flour, cornmeal, molasses, salt, baking soda, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 465 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a mixing bowl, combine the egg, sweet milk, sour milk, wheat flour, cornmeal, molasses, salt, baking soda, and melted butter. Mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the batter into a greased steaming mold.

Steam

  1. Steam for 3 to 4 hours until cooked through.

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. Wheat + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

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

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Wheat flour
Provides the main structure as its proteins and starches set around the air and gas.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lightens the bread.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tang and tenderness to the crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a dark color with a deep flavor.
Cornmeal (in the method)
Adds a coarse, slightly crumbly texture and a sweet corn flavor.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps give it structure as it cooks.

The step that matters

Mixing the batter. Baking soda starts producing gas as soon as it meets the acidic sour milk and molasses, so the batter should be mixed well and moved into the mold promptly to trap that gas for a light rise.

“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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