Skip to main content
Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed bread made with Graham flour, all-purpose flour, molasses, milk, salt, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Mix the batter

  1. Sift the Graham flour and all-purpose flour together.

  2. Add salt and baking powder.

  3. Sift three more times.

  4. Mix in the molasses and milk until well combined.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered steamer or a clean can.

  2. Steam for 3½ hours, ensuring the water boils constantly during cooking.

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. Molasses + milktop 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

Graham flour
Adds coarse bran and a nutty, hearty texture to the crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides gluten-forming structure so the bread holds together after steaming.
Molasses
Adds dark color, sweetness and moisture, and a deep caramel flavor.
Milk
Hydrates the flours so the batter forms a pourable, moist mixture.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the batter and helps it rise as it steams.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling constantly during steaming. Steam is what cooks and raises the batter. If the water drops below a boil, heat transfer slows, the bread can turn dense or gummy, and the long steaming time may not set it through.

“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.

More boston brown bread recipes

Ice Cream 3 See all 349 →

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes