Apron Free Cooking ~ Boston Brown Bread

By Noel Lizotte

What is a Cook­book Exchange? Well, I attended one last week and I can tell you it’s a lot of fun!

The Galion Pub­lic Library held a cook­book exchange and they only had three sim­ple rules: 1. Show up. 2. Bring up to three cook­books to trade. 3. Bring a dish to share.

I took three cook­books and some brown­ies. I came home with some new cook­books, some new recipes and some new friends.

One of the cook­books I brought home is going to be a real trea­sure. It’s a New Eng­land regional cook­book. I’m pretty excited to start using it! See, my fam­ily and my husband’s fam­ily all hail from New Eng­land. So that’s the style of cook­ing we grew up with.

I spent a few hours pag­ing through this “new to me” cook­book. Then I pulled out my trusty, old faith­ful Bet­ter Homes and my mix­ing bowl. It was time to make my husband’s favorite New Eng­land recipe: Boston Brown Bread.

If you’ve never had Boston Brown Bread, please note, it is not wheat type brown bread. It’s heavy and sweet and nutri­tious and dark brown. It’s deli­cious, but it’s a bit of an effort to make.

Boston Brown Bread

1 c. All-purpose Flour

1 tsp. Bak­ing Powder

1 tsp. Bak­ing Soda

1 tsp. Salt

1 c. Yel­low Cornmeal

1 c. Whole Wheat Flour

¾ c. Dark Molasses

2 c. But­ter­milk or Sour Milk

1 c. Raisins

Sift all-purpose flour with bak­ing pow­der, soda and salt; stir in corn­meal and whole wheat flour. Add remain­ing ingre­di­ents; beat well. Divide bat­ter among 4 greased and floured 1-pound food cans. Cover tightly with foil. Place on rack in deep ket­tle; pour in boil­ing water to 1 inch depth. Cover ket­tle; steam 3 hours, adding more boil­ing water if needed. Uncover cans. Place in 450 degree Fahren­heit oven for 5 min­utes. Remove bread from cans. Cool on rack.

Make it a meal: Tra­di­tion­ally, Boston Brown Bread is served with Boston Baked Beans. It’s a good break­fast with a banana. I’ve dis­cov­ered it’s really good with a bowl of plain vanilla ice cream, too.

Approx­i­mate Nutri­tional Value per serv­ing: Serv­ings per Recipe: 20, Calo­ries: 88, Fat: 1g, Cho­les­terol: 0mg, Sodium: 284mg, Total Carbs: 19g, Dietary Fiber: 2g, Pro­tein: 2g.

My hus­band likes this bread because it’s nice and solid with­out being overly heavy and rich. He says it’s a great treat to take on the sail boat. My dad likes it because it reminds him of grow­ing up in Rhode Island. I think it’s a nice treat. I can’t wait to try some of the other New Eng­land recipes.

By the way, in regards the cook­book exchange, if you ever have an oppor­tu­nity to attend one; I highly sug­gest it. We talked and laughed and had a all around good time.

Noel Lizotte is break­ing free of cor­po­rate stress with con­ve­nience cook­ing! www.apronfreecooking.com . She also writes a monthly col­umn at www.culinary.net.

Posted by Noel Lizotte on Jun 5 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.