Thursday, February 21, 2008

Boston Brown Bread

Last week as we were learning about Massachusetts we had fun making Boston Brown Bread. It was something that I have never made before and it is made quite differently but it is very good. I thought I would share the recipe with you. The recipes makes 2 small loaves.

1 Tbsp butter at room temperature
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup wholewheat flour
1 cup rye flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 cups buttermilk
(or you can cheat like I did and use dry milk, water and a little vinager)
1/2 cup molassas
1 cup raisens
Grease two 1 lb. food cans with the soft butter. (I used a can from Spaghetti Sauce and one from Peaches that I had washed out well.)
Stir together all of the dry ingrediants. Add the wet ingrediants and mix well. Pour the batter into the two cans, filling them 2/3 full. Cover the tops with buttered foil and secure down so that the rising bread cannot push off the foil lid. Set the cans on a rack in a large sauce pan with a lid. Pour in enough warm water to come halfway up the sides of the cans. Cover the pan, bring to a boil, and steam for 2 1/2 hours. Check occasionally to make sure that there is still enought water in there, adding more if neccasary.

Then comes the time to take the time to take it out of the cans. Slice the loaves and serve with butter or cream cheese. We all thought it was quite yummy! (And actaully quite light for having been made with all whole grains!) I doubt I will make this very often because of the long cooking time, but I think it would work great if you had a wood stove going that had a flat top the you could cook it on. My mom does a lot of cooking on the top of her wood stove but hasn't tried this yet, but I think it would work well.
When I finally remembered to take a picture of the finished product this was all that was left!

Have you tried eating or making Boston Brown Bread? What did you think?

3 comments:

Paul Barber said...

Abbi, I won't have pics of the Freedom Trail this time - we weren't able to go because it was really cold today and Paul was very sick! The cold and flu has been going around here a lot and it really knocks you out!! Hope you had fun studying MA! I have seen the bread here - I think you can buy it at the grocery store but we haven't ever tried it - it does look good but I agree with you - too much time! ( : Have a great day!

Abbi said...

Venessa, I am sorry that you have sickness in your house. I hope Paul gets well soon and the rest of you don't get it.
We did have a lot of fun studying about Mass. I have a lot to post about it, I just need to get busy and do it.

Anonymous said...

I've really been enjoying your web site ever since I found it by chance during a google search (I was searching for "colonial stews", btw). The bread looks very interesting. I'm an amateur artisan bread baker, so I would definately like to give it a try.

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