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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A brown bread made with cornmeal, rye flour, white flour, molasses, and sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,320 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the yellow cornmeal, rye flour, white flour, salt, and baking soda.

  2. Add the molasses and enough sour milk to create a batter.

Steam and serve

  1. Fill two one-pound baking powder cans three-quarters full with the batter.

  2. Boil the cans for three 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. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Yellow cornmeal
Gives the bread its coarse, crumbly texture and hearty body.
Rye flour
Adds a dense texture and a distinctive, earthy flavor.
White flour
Provides gluten structure so the loaf holds together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas, helping the bread rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture to the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and the dark color typical of the bread.

The step that matters

Fill the cans three-quarters full. Baking soda reacting with the sour milk releases gas, so the batter expands while steaming. Leaving room in each can keeps the batter from overflowing and lets the loaf rise evenly.

“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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