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Boston Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with cornmeal, graham flour, sour milk, molasses, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in a little hot water and mix it with the sour milk.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the yellow cornmeal, graham flour, molasses, and salt.

  3. Add the sour milk mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until well combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Fill pound baking powder cans about halfway with the batter and cover them.

  2. Steam the cans for about 3 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 acidic sour milk to release gas, lifting and lightening the dense batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and a tangy flavor.
Yellow cornmeal
Provides the coarse, hearty structure and texture of the bread.
Graham flour
Adds whole-grain body, nutty flavor and a slightly firmer crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the bread.

The step that matters

Fill the cans only about halfway. The batter rises during steaming as the baking soda reacts with the sour milk. Filling only halfway leaves room for expansion, so the bread does not overflow or turn dense from being packed in.

“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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