Skip to main content
Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed and baked rye and cornmeal bread with molasses and sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rye and milk work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 918 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. 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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Mix the rye meal and cornmeal together evenly.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in boiling water.

  3. Add the dissolved soda and molasses to the sour milk and mix well.

  4. Pour the mixture into the meal, add the salt, and stir thoroughly.

Steam and bake

  1. Pour the batter into a well-greased 2-quart brown-bread mold.

  2. Cover with a lid and steam for 5 hours.

  3. Remove the lid and bake in the oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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

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

  2. Rye + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda, producing gas that lets the bread rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce carbon dioxide, leavening the batter.
Rye meal
Adds a dense, earthy structure and flavour to the crumb.
Cornmeal
Provides bulk and a coarse, crumbly texture to the loaf.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda fully before combining. Baking soda must dissolve evenly in the liquid so it reacts with the acid throughout the batter; undissolved pockets leave dense spots or uneven rising.

“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.

More boston brown bread recipes

Ice Cream 3 See all 349 →

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes