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Boston Brown Bread

A historical recipe from Common Sense in the Household, by Marion Harland (1880).

A historical recipe

Common Sense in the Household: A Manual of Practical Housewifery, by Marion Harland (1880). Project Gutenberg eBook #48804.

From an old book: a historical recipe, not current advice. Its methods, additives and storage may be unsafe by today's standards.

Source and licence

From Common Sense in the Household, by Marion Harland (1880). Digitised by Project Gutenberg, eBook #48804 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48804). Public domain in the USA; its status may differ elsewhere.

Read the original Public domain in the USA

What was changed: As printed, from the book's text; Project Gutenberg's header and licence removed. Ingredient lines were read out of the text by a program. A historical recipe, not current advice.

United States. Associated with United States by a place in its title: boston (confidence 0.65). "Associated with" means only that the evidence named here links this recipe to that place. A recipe isn't labelled as representing an entire country because a source associates it with one, and regional origins are kept where the source gives them.

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Ingredients

Method

  1. Set a sponge over night, with potatoes or white flour, in the following proportions:— 1 cup yeast.
  2. 6 potatoes, mashed fine with three cups of flour.
  3. 1 quart warm water.
  4. 2 tablespoonfuls lard (or, if you leave out the potatoes, one quart of warm water to three pints of flour).
  5. 2 tablespoonfuls brown sugar.
  6. Beat up well and let it rise five or six hours.
  7. When light, sift into the bread-tray— 1 quart rye-flour.
  8. 2 quarts Indian meal.
  9. 1 tablespoonful salt.
  10. 1 teaspoonful soda, or saleratus.
  11. Mix this up very soft with the risen sponge, adding warm water, if needed, and working in gradually Half a teacupful of molasses.
  12. Knead well, and let it rise from six to seven hours.
  13. Then work over again, and divide into loaves, putting these in well-greased, round, deep pans.
  14. The second rising should last an hour, at the end of which time bake in a moderate oven about four hours.
  15. Rapid baking will ruin it.
  16. If put in late in the day, let it stay in the oven all night.