Boston Brown Bread

Submitted by mollypaul

"Boston baked beans and brown bread is the traditional New England Saturday-night supper. If you like raisins in your Boston brown bread, add one cup of raisins or sultanas dredged with a little flour. This delicious recipe comes from the New England chapter of the United States Regional Cookbook, Culinary Arts Institute of Chicago, 1947. Steaming time approximate."

 

• Ready In: 1hr 25mins
• Ingredients: 7
• Yields: 3 loaves

ingredients

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1 cup graham flour or 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup rye flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3⁄4 cup molasses
• 1 1⁄2 cups buttermilk or 1 1/2 cups sour milk

directions

1. Mix and sift dry ingredients together very well.
2. Stir in remaining ingredients.
3. Place rounds of greased parchment or waxed paper in the bottom of clean one-pound cans; grease the sides of the cans and fill 2/3 full with batter.
4. Place the cans on a rack in a large kettle; add warm water to half the height of the can.
5. Cover the kettle and let the water come to the boil.
6. Boil gently from 1 to 2 hours or until well done, adding more boiling water as necessary to keep the water at the desired level.
7. Uncover the kettle and place cans in a 400F oven for a few minutes to dry the top.
8. Remove from the cans immediately and serve hot with baked beans.

Reviews

[Karen in Gotham]

This was delicious and so easy. The only problem was that there was no way the batter could fit in a 1-lb. coffee can, so next time I'll reduce everything by 1/3 (fortunately, I have a 1/3 teaspoon measuring spoon). I used stone-ground graham flour and yellow corn meal from Kenyon's in Rhode Island and I used 1/2 cup light/1/4 cup dark molasses. I let it simmer the entire 2 hours (I might go a bit less next time) and it popped right out of the can with no trouble whatsoever. For what it's worth, I covered it with the can's lid and didn't bother baking it afterwards.