This bread used to come in a soup-can sized loaf. I remember it as a date and nut bread. Great for cream cheese sandwiches…You know how memories of food can drive one to distraction? Please, take pity, share a Boston Brown Bread with CITR Farm Bell.
Boston Brown Bread
Oct
18
18
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Suzanne McMinn says:
I found Mrs. Turkey’s recipe! I think this is what you’re looking for:
http://farmbellrecipes.com/boston-brown-bread/
On October 18, 2010 at 7:15 am
Miss Mae says:
I purchase this at my grocery store in a LARGE can. S&M Brown Bread it’s called. Very simple. Only ingredients seem to be a little flour, corn meal, molasses, water and raisins.
I love it!
On October 19, 2010 at 5:04 pm
whaledancer says:
My mom used to make Boston brown bread and I loved it. When I was first married I started making it. I used 2-lb dog food cans as molds, because they were the right size and were the only cans I could find without ridges around the sides, but I discovered that seeing it come out of a dog food can put people right off the bread, lol. (I DID sterilize them!)
I was just looking for my mom’s recipe, but what I found was one from a 1910 church cookbook editted by my great-grandmother:
Boston Brown Bread
“The Bostonians, you know, are most cultured, ‘tis said,
And it’s greatly on account of their Boston Brown Bread.
The secret of making I’m privileged to tell—
So 1 cup of corn meal, dear sister, sift well;
Then add to the same 1 cup of graham,*
And 1 cup and 1/2 of white flour,
Of molasses 1 cup, and an egg beaten up,
And 1 cup of milk that is sour;
1 teaspoon and 1/2 of soda to raise it,
And 1 of salt, or none would praise it;
Stir it up well, and 4 hours steam it;
And rest assured all will deem it
A greater treat than finest cake
That one could eat or a cook could bake.”
*Rye in place of graham makes a darker, moister bread.
BTW, there are three other recipes for Boston brown bread in that cookbook, which I can post if you like. But here’s the recipe I used to use, from the 1956 Betty Crocker Picture Cook Book:
Steamed Brown Bread
Of old—was always served with baked beans
Mix…
1 cup rye flour or sifted GOLD MEDAL [all-purpose white]flour
1 cup corn meal
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
Stir in…
3/4 cup molasses
2 cups sour milk or buttermilk
[I always added raisins, too]
Beat well. Fill greased molds 2/3 full (using two 1-lb coffee cans or one 7” tube-center mold). Lay waxed paper over the top. Steam 3 hr. [as for steamed pudding.] Serve piping hot with butter.
How to steam [puddings]
1. Pour pudding batter into generously greased molds… Filling them 1/2 to 2/3 full. This allows for expansion of batter.
2. Place in steamer. Tie waxed paper loosely over mold to prevent steam which collects on cover dropping on pudding [I used aluminum foil].
3. Remove from steamer after prescribed time. Remove waxed paper. Place pudding in oven 1 min. to dry the top slightly.
4. Loosen pudding at one side to let in air. Turn out on hot serving dish. [Using dog food cans allowed me to simply cut out the bottom and push the brown bread out, like canned cranberry jelly.]
Since I can no longer find B&M Brown Bread in the supermarket, I may have to go back to making my own. But I don’t know what I’ll use for molds…
On October 20, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Mrs.Turkey says:
If you can’t use coffee tins…pour it in a loaf pan…like you would banana bread. How about a bundt pan?
I’m lucky that I can find it in any store here in Maine. I did see it for sale on Amazon.
Mrs. Turkey
On October 21, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Miss Mae says:
That is such a cute poem! 🙂
On October 22, 2010 at 1:59 pm
carolsutton says:
I started out thinking it would be easier to look up the recipe on line…LOL found it was easier to go get my grandmothers Ratty, falling apart,triple back patient pending, meredeth press 01, the only cook book in her life, Better Homes and Garden “new” cook book. I did however find your quest and had to respond, I remember when she would make this and my mom and how great it smelled. To see it come out of the steam pot then to the oven, omg… talk about mouth watering!It wasn’t something we got very often, so it was so looked forward too. It was really neat, as a kid, to see it cooked in a baking powder can and slide out pipping hot, steam rolling up filling the whole house with the aroama of hot molasses, then when it was sliced… lather some home made butter on it watching it melt. And don’t forget the fresh, ice cold raw milk, shaken to form little bubbles as it was poured into a tall glass. Aaaa, the good(not sooo long ago) days! Can’t wait to get some going! I am posting the recipe Hoping you enjoy it as much as (the past 5 generations, that I know of)our family has! P.S. I use kidney bean cans these days.
On January 17, 2012 at 12:56 am