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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed and baked bread made with Indian meal, molasses, sour milk, and graham flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour 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

  1. Scald the Indian meal overnight.

Mix and steam

  1. In a bowl, mix the scalded Indian meal, molasses, salt, sour milk, baking soda, and graham flour until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased mold.

  3. Steam for 3 hours.

Finish

  1. After steaming, bake to achieve a nice crust.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Milk and flour 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

Indian meal
Provides the main body and coarse, hearty texture of the bread.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and the dark color and flavor typical of this bread.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that lifts the bread.
Graham flour
Adds structure and a nutty, wholesome texture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Steaming for the full 3 hours. Steam keeps the batter moist and lets the starches in the meal and flour set gradually. Cutting the steaming short can leave the centre dense and gummy, while letting the steam dry out can make the bread tough.

“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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