Recipe: Sourdough Boston Brown Bread

(using discard or not)

Last week, my friend

Elisabet Juan Roca

shared a detailed, beautiful essay on the history and joys of Boston brown bread, one of my favorite classic New England foods:

Boston Brown Bread

I’ve been making Boston brown bread since I first developed a recipe for it early on in my tenure at ATK. For those who don’t know it, Boston brown bread is, despite the name, really more of a not-too-sweet steamed pudding rather than a bread, made from more-or-less equal parts whole-rye, whole-wheat, and cornmeal, along with molasses and milk (or buttermilk). As Eli details, the earliest versions of it were fermented (using barm, the yeasty raft floating on the top of beer barrels), and baked freeform as a hearth loaf.

The Boston brown bread recipe from the 1896 Fannie Farmer Cookbook

But the version most New Englanders know and love is leavened with baking soda (which reacts with the acidic molasses and buttermilk) and steamed in closed containers—metal pudding molds or repurposed Chock full O’Nuts coffee cans—in a water bath. It starts off as more of a thick batter than a dough, and the high hydration and wet, slow cooking method leaves it with a dense, moist, cake-like texture, though one with a nubbly, grainy quality to it, owing to the branny flours used. It’s traditionally eaten alongside another New England BBB—Boston baked beans—but is equally good simply toasted (or griddled) until hot and crisp, topped with a thick pat of butter.

Eli and I met up a few weeks back to talk and taste Boston brown bread at Cambridge’s HiRise Bread Company, one of the few bakeries in New England that make the bread regularly. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any on the shelves that day, but I brought some of my own with me for her to sample and later photograph for her story.

My brown bread (photos by Elisabet Juan Roca)

She was eventually able to get some of HiRise’s BBB and tried it alongside mine and the one that can be found in supermarkets in the Northeast, made by Portland, Maine’s B&M Foods. Here’s how she describes mine, relative to the others:

His recipe also includes raisins and it’s the most complex of the three versions in my opinion. It has a certain sweetness but the predominant flavor is the rye, without it being too overpowering. It has reminiscences of the breads you would find in Germany or Scandinavia: robust. But also, a bit grainy from the corn, moist from the butter, complex from the sourdough and sweet from the raisins and the molasses. A delicious bite.

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My recipe has evolved since the ATK version, but the primary change is that about a third of the flour in it is fermented, in the form of sourdough discard. As I have mentioned before, my main goal for sourdough discard recipes is to use as much of the stuff as possible in one fell swoop, and this recipe fits the bill, since it calls for about a cup of the stuff. Not only does using discard—or a freshly-fermented levain if you don’t have enough on hand—tenderize the some of the bran in the flours, it gives the bread another layer of flavor. (But really, who cares? What matters most is that it gets that stuff out of my fridge.) Because lots of the liquid that would be in the recipe is already in the discard, I make up for the lack of milk solids by adding nonfat dry milk powder; if you don’t have it, you can use milk or buttermilk in place of the water to restore some of them.

It’s been tested using any type of discard: white flour, whole-wheat, whole-rye, or even a combination. The most important thing to keep in mind is that, along with the cornmeal, you need to choose the other flour you use in the batter based on what you already have, so that you end up with a combination of all three flours. (In other words, if your discard is white flour or whole-wheat based, use rye. If it is rye-based, use whole-wheat.) It also works with a discard of any hydration, since there is plenty of water in it either way.

Not all Boston brown breads contain butter, but mine does, because it enhances the cakey texture and adds a welcome richness. I recently doubled the amount of butter to 24%, which makes it quite rich, though you can use half that much if you want to keep it a bit more austere.

Raisins or currants are a common addition to Boston brown bread, but they are optional here. They soften so much during baking that they practically blend into the bread and lack the “cooked raisin” texture that some people don’t like, so I do recommend including them, even if you are skeptical.

Like HiRise, I prefer to bake my Boston brown bread at a low temperature (300˚F/150˚C), rather than steam it. It really doesn’t change the texture at all, except on the top crust, which ends up a pleasantly crisp—the rest of the bread still “steams” within the container—and it is a whole lot easier to do.

It’s made in cans like most brown breads, but instead of larger coffee cans, I use two 28-ounce tomato cans with their tops (but not their bottoms) removed. Look for a couple of BPA-free cans of tomatoes at the supermarket and make some pizza or pasta sauce to procure them. Or bake it as a single, rectangular loaf in a 9x4x4-inch Pullman pan instead.

—Andrew

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Sourdough (Discard) Boston Brown Bread

makes: two ~500g can breads (or one ~1-kilo pan bread)

bread class: quick bread

loaf type: pan

mixing type: hand

specialty equipment needed: two BPA-free clean 28-ounce tomato cans, tops removed, or a 9x4x4-inch Pullman pan

minimum time frame: ~2 hours

Notes:

• Some of the flour from the recipe is coming from the sourdough discard, so you’ll need to adjust the recipe accordingly:

  • If your discard is wheat-flour based (white or whole-wheat), use whole-rye in the final dough.

  • If it is rye-based, use whole-wheat.

  • It works best with a whole-grain discard, because the traditional recipe uses only whole-grain flour, but a white flour discard will work nicely too.

• Boston brown bread is typically made with white cornmeal, but any finely-ground cornmeal will work here.

• If you do not have 255g sourdough discard on hand, you can make it ahead of time by combining 127g whole-wheat flour, 127g water, and 10g starter in a container and letting it sit for 12–15 hours at room temperature. If not using right away, store in the fridge until needed.

• If your discard is of a lower hydration than 100%, don’t sweat it, it shouldn’t make a noticeable difference.

• You can use 253g milk or buttermilk in place of the water and milk powder, if desired.

• Avoid blackstrap molasses if possible, it is much too bitter.

• This recipe contains a lot of butter, which I like. If you want to make it a little more healthful (and still very nice), reduce it by half, to 45g.

• The raisins soften and blend into the bread, texture-wise, but can be left out if desired.

OVERALL FORMULA

whole-wheat flour 35%

whole-rye flour 35%

fine cornmeal 30%

water 94%

molasses 35%

butter 24% (see notes)

non-fat dry milk powder 10%

baking soda 2%

salt 0.75%

raisins (optional) 20%

prefermented flour 35%

DOUGH

128g whole-rye or whole-wheat flour (see notes)

110g fine cornmeal

37g nonfat dry milk powder (see notes)

7g (1-1/2 teaspoons) baking soda

3g (1/2 teaspoon fine) salt

216g water

255g 100%-hydration sourdough discard (see notes)

128g molasses (see notes)

90g unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

73g raisins (optional)

1. Set an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 300˚F (150˚C). Grease the inside of two BPA-free 28-ounce cans (or one 9- by 4- by 4-inch Pullman pan), place on a rimmed baking sheet, and set aside.

2. Whisk the rye or whole-wheat flour, cornmeal, milk powder, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl. Add the raisins, if using, and toss to combine. Whisk the sourdough discard, water, molasses, and melted butter together in a second large bowl. Add the flour mixture to the liquid mixture and fold with a spatula until combined and no dry flour remains. Immediately scoop the batter into the prepared pan(s) and set the baking sheet in the oven.

3. Bake until the internal temperature is between 190˚F and 200˚F (88–93˚C), or a tester inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean, 75 to 90 minutes.

4. Transfer the pan(s) to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes. Invert onto the rack, gently shake the cans to release the loaves, flip right side up, and then let cool completely, about 1 hour. Slice and serve. (Or wrap tightly in foil and store at room temperature for up to 3 days.)