Name: Boston Brown Bread
Ingredients: 1 cup rye flour; 1 cup graham flour; 1 cup corn meal; 1 to 2 cups New Orleans black molasses; 1 pinch salt; 1 teaspoon baking soda; sour milk or buttermilk (enough to make a thick batter)

Why it works: Rye and corn work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 182 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

In a bowl, combine rye flour, graham flour, corn meal, molasses, salt, and baking soda.
Add enough sour milk or buttermilk to create a thick batter.
Optionally, mix in some raisins.

Steam and serve

Pour the batter into a buttered tin.
For smaller loaves, use baking powder cans filled 1/2 to 2/3 with batter.
Boil for three to four 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.

Rye + corntop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together182 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,320 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Rye + milktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together918 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,165 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

Rye flour: Adds a dense, hearty structure and a distinctive flavor to the loaf.
Graham flour: Adds coarse texture and nutty flavor, helping give the loaf its body.
Corn meal: Adds grainy texture and bulk, keeping the dense crumb moist and tender.
New orleans black molasses: Provides sweetness, dark color, and a deep, rich flavor.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic sour milk or buttermilk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Sour milk or buttermilk: Supplies acidity that activates the baking soda and moisture that hydrates the flours.

The step that matters

Boiling for three to four hours. The loaf is cooked by steady steam in a covered vessel, so the water must keep boiling for the full time. If the water level drops or boils too hard, the loaf can dry out or cook unevenly.

“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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Boston Brown Bread