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Bread

Boston Brown Bread

A steamed and baked bread made with cornmeal, wheat meal, rye meal, 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: Wheat and rye match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Boston Brown Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift all dry ingredients into a bowl.

  2. Add molasses and sour milk.

  3. Mix the batter thoroughly but quickly.

  4. Add 1 cup seeded raisins to the batter (optional).

Steam and dry

  1. Pour into greased molds, filling them slightly over half full.

  2. Steam for 3 hours, or 4.5 hours if using one large mold.

  3. Remove covers and place molds in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes to dry the crust.

Serve

  1. Remove from molds while hot, whether serving warm or cold.

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. Wheat + ryetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Milk + ryetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together918 recipes

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

  4. Molasses + ryetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Provides the coarse, grainy body and sturdy structure of the bread.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to lift the batter and adds tenderness.
Wheat meal
Adds structure and a hearty, nutty texture to the crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and the dark color and rich flavor of the bread.
Rye meal
Contributes a tangy, earthy flavor and helps give the bread its dense crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acidity to produce gas that leavens the batter.

The step that matters

Mix the batter thoroughly but quickly. Baking soda starts reacting as soon as it meets the acidic sour milk, so the batter should be mixed well to distribute it evenly and then moved to the molds without delay so the gas bubbles are trapped for a good rise.

“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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