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Boston Brown Bread (Cup rye meal cup granulated)
1 cup rye meal 1 cup granulated corn meal 1 cup Graham flour 2 cups sour milk, or 1 3/4 cups sweet milk or water 3/4 tablespoon soda 1 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup molasses Mix and sift dry ingredients, add molasses and milk, stir until well mixed, turn into a well-buttered mould, and steam three and one-half hours. The cover should be buttered before being placed on mould, and then tied down with string; otherwise the bread in rising might force off cover. Mould should never be filled more than two-thirds full. A melon-mould or one-pound baking-powder boxes make the most attractive-shaped loaves, but a five-pound lard pail answers the purpose. For steaming, place mould on a trivet in kettle containing boiling water, allowing water to come half-way up around mould, cover closely, and steam, adding, as needed, more boiling water. New England Brown Bread 1 1/2 cups stale bread 3 1/4 cups cold water 3/4 cup molasses 1 1/2 teaspoons salt Rye meal Granulated corn meal Graham Flour 3 teaspoons soda 1 1/2 cups each Soak bread in two cups of the water over night. In the morning rub through colander, add molasses, dry ingredients mixed and sifted, and remaining water. Stir until well mixed, fill buttered one-pound baking-powder boxes two-thirds full, cover, and steam two hours.
A classic steamed brown bread: no yeast, no kneading, and no oven. The soda and the acid in sour milk do all the lifting, so the batter should go into the mould and onto the heat promptly.
- Sour milk means buttermilkSour milk means naturally soured milk; cultured buttermilk is the usual modern stand-in and supplies the acid the soda needs. The recipe offers sweet milk or water as an alternative, in which case the molasses is the main acid available to the soda.
- The soda measureThree-quarters of a tablespoon is 2 1/4 teaspoons. Sift it thoroughly with the meals; an unmixed pocket of soda leaves a bitter, soapy streak and a greenish crumb.
- The mealsRye meal is whole rye, ground coarser than modern fine rye flour but not as coarse as pumpernickel meal. "Granulated corn meal" is ordinary medium-grind yellow or white cornmeal, not corn flour or masa. Graham flour is whole wheat, stone-ground if you can get it.
- MouldsOne-pound baking-powder boxes are gone; a 1-quart pudding basin, a coffee can, or two 28-oz tomato cans washed out work the same way. Butter the container and the lid, fill no more than two-thirds, and cover with buttered foil tied down with string so the rising loaf cannot push it off.
- Setting up the steamerA trivet or a folded towel keeps the mould off the bottom of the kettle so the base does not scorch. Water halfway up the mould, lid on tight, and top up only with boiling water so the steam never falters.
- Time and donenessThree and a half hours is right for a single large mould; the second recipe on the page gives two hours for one-pound baking-powder boxes. The loaf is cooked when a skewer comes out clean and the top springs back.
- Yield and servingCut warm with a length of string or a serrated knife rather than pressing down with a blade, and serve with butter, cream cheese, or baked beans in the New England fashion.