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Steamed Brown Bread (II)
Mrs. Carson.
Three cups of yellow corn meal, one cup of flour, two cups of sweet milk, one cup of sour milk, half cup of molasses, one teaspoon of soda; dissolve soda in hot water, pour half in the sour milk and half in molasses ; steam three hours and bake half an hour in a quick oven; just brown the top.
A steamed cornmeal loaf of the New England type, though without the rye that usually goes into Boston brown bread. The method is straightforward; the details of the vessel and the water level are what decide whether it works.
- The hinge: keep the steam goingThe mould must be covered and the pot lid kept on for the full three hours, with boiling water replenished as it evaporates so the level stays about halfway up the mould. If the pot runs dry the bottom scorches and the loaf sets dense and streaky.
- Sweet milk and sour milkSweet milk is plain fresh whole milk. Sour milk means clabbered raw milk; cultured buttermilk is the closest modern stand-in, and it supplies the acid the soda needs.
- Soda, split two waysOne teaspoon of soda dissolved in a spoonful or two of hot water, half stirred into the buttermilk and half into the molasses. Dividing it spreads the gas through both acidic components rather than setting off one violent fizz; work quickly once it is in and get the batter into the mould.
- MolassesUse unsulphured dark molasses, not blackstrap, which is bitter and harsher than the table molasses of the 1870s.
- No salt in the originalThe recipe omits it, as many of this period do. A teaspoon of salt in the dry cornmeal is a fair addition.
- The mouldThe batter runs to six or seven cups, so allow a mould of three quarts or more, or divide it between several tins, well greased and filled no more than two-thirds; the batter needs headroom. Cover tightly with a lid or foil tied down so condensation does not drip in.
- "A quick oven"Roughly 400 to 425F. Since the aim is only to dry and brown the crust on an already cooked loaf, thirty minutes at that heat is generous; check at fifteen or twenty and pull it when the top is set and coloured.
- Yield and servingOne large loaf, well over two pounds. Cut warm with a length of thread rather than a knife, which drags on a moist crumb, and serve with butter or alongside baked beans.
The Home Cook Book was compiled in Chicago in the 1870s from contributions by named local women, which is why this page reads simply "Mrs. Carson" and why the book carries two competing steamed brown breads. Steamed brown bread belongs to a long New England habit of cooking bread in a covered mould over water rather than in an oven, a practical arrangement in kitchens where the fire was kept for the boiling pot and the oven was heated only on baking day. The classic version combines rye, cornmeal and wheat, and is generally traced to the same colonial economy that produced Indian pudding and hasty pudding, all built on maize because wheat was scarce and expensive. Mrs. Carson's version drops the rye and leans on yellow cornmeal, and the molasses does double duty: it colours the loaf brown and supplies the acid that, with the sour milk, sets the soda working. Recipes of the 1870s often fuss over exactly how to dissolve and distribute the soda, as this one does.