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Steamed Corn Bread
One and a half cups of sweet milk, a tablespoonful of molasses, half a teaspoonful of soda, and a pinch of salt. Make a thick batter of one-third flour and two-thirds corn-meal. Steam an hour and a half in a basin.
A plain steamed quick bread of the Boston brown bread family, scaled down to a single basin. The original leaves the dry measure to the cook's judgment, so the batter consistency is the thing to watch.
- The flour and meal are unmeasuredWith 1½ cups milk you will need roughly 2 to 2½ cups of dry mixture total — about ¾ cup flour to 1½ cups cornmeal — to reach a "thick batter" that mounds on the spoon but still pours. Modern degerminated cornmeal may take up liquid differently from older whole meal, so add it gradually rather than all at once.
- "Sweet milk" means fresh milkIt is simply milk that has not soured, specified to distinguish it from the buttermilk or sour milk used elsewhere in these books. Whole milk is the closest match.
- Soda with only molasses for acidHalf a teaspoon of soda has little acid to react with here — a tablespoon of molasses is only mildly acidic, and sweet milk supplies little. Expect a fairly dense loaf, and possibly a faint soda taste. Using buttermilk in place of the sweet milk, or adding a teaspoon of baking powder, gives a better rise; both are departures from the text.
- A basin, and how to rig itA pudding basin of about 1½ quarts, or a large coffee tin. Grease it well, fill no more than two-thirds, and cover tightly with greased foil or a cloth tied down, or condensation will run into the batter.
- The steaming setupStand the basin on a trivet or folded cloth in a deep pot, pour boiling water halfway up the sides, cover, and keep the water at a bare simmer for 1½ hours. Top up with boiling water as it falls; if the pot boils dry the loaf scorches.
- DonenessA skewer into the centre should come out clean and the loaf should have pulled slightly from the sides. Steamed breads stay pale and slightly tacky on the surface — ten minutes in a 350F oven after unmoulding dries the crust if that bothers you.
- Yield and servingOne small loaf, six to eight slices. Best eaten warm the day it is made, cut thick with butter; traditionally served alongside baked beans or salt pork.
Steamed cornmeal breads belong to a long New England habit of cooking bread in a covered vessel over water rather than in an oven — a method that suited households where the range fire was needed for other things, or where no reliable oven existed at all. The best-known member of the family is Boston brown bread, which adds rye meal and far more molasses and is steamed for hours; this version is its stripped-down cousin, sweetened with a single spoonful and leavened with soda rather than yeast.