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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and rye 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

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift together the cornmeal, graham flour, and rye flour.

  2. In a large bowl, mix the molasses, sweet milk, and sour milk.

  3. Add the sifted flours, baking soda, and salt to the wet ingredients and mix well.

Steam and finish

  1. Pour the batter into baking powder cans, leaving room for it to rise.

  2. Steam the cans for 4 hours.

  3. After steaming, place the cans in a preheated oven for a few 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. Flour + ryetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Cornmeal
Gives the bread its coarse, hearty texture and golden colour.
Graham flour
Adds structure and a slightly nutty, wholesome flavour to the crumb.
Rye flour
Adds flavour and a moist, tender crumb with some structure.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture to the bread.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acidity to produce gas that makes the bread rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda, and it adds tang and moisture.

The step that matters

Leave room for the batter to rise. Baking soda reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas, so the batter expands while steaming. Filling the cans too full can cause the batter to overflow or make the bread dense.

“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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