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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A sweet, molasses‑flavored bread made with cornmeal, rye meal, Graham meal, molasses, milk, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Coffee and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,202 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift together the cornmeal, rye meal, and Graham meal.

  2. In a large bowl, beat the sifted meals with the molasses, sweet milk, sour milk, baking soda, and salt until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into a tin form or a covered tin pail, leaving room for it to swell.

Steam and finish

  1. Place the form in a kettle of cold water and bring to a boil, cooking for four hours.

  2. Ensure the water does not boil over the top of the form and does not completely evaporate.

  3. After cooking, remove the lid and place the bread in a preheated oven for a few moments to dry the top before turning it out.

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. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Coffee + molassestop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together640 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  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

Cornmeal
Provides the bulk and coarse, grainy texture of the loaf.
Rye meal
Adds a dense, earthy flavour and helps give the crumb its body.
Graham meal
Contributes a nutty, slightly sweet flavour and a tender, coarse crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture, and gives the bread its characteristic flavour.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda so the loaf rises and turns tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.

The step that matters

Keeping the water level right during steaming. If the water boils over into the form, it can make the bread soggy, and if it evaporates completely the bread can scorch and dry out. Steady gentle simmering keeps the steam even for the full four hours, and leaving room in the form lets the batter rise without overflowing.

“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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