Boston Brown Bread

 I was perusing a little, spiral bound cookbook titled Slow Cooking for Crock Enthusiasts.

Published in 1982 by G & R Publishing, it is a very unassuming little book.  There is no fanfare with it - once you open the cover pages, the index is next, then the recipes.  There is no author listed, no preface, just a "get down to business" attitude.

The recipes are typical of the very early '80s:  most of the beef recipes are made with ground beef, there are very few "trendy" ingredients, and the recipes are what I associate with solid, midwestern American cooking.  I see beef stew, baked chicken, rice pudding, Swiss steak, stewed tomatoes.  And I saw something that sparked a memory of my childhood:  Boston Brown Bread.

Most likely what I recalled tasting when I was a kid was brown bread from a can.  You can still buy it.  But I had a strong memory of what it tasted and felt like.  I wanted to try this at home.  Would my recall be correct?

Boston Brown Bread  (page 107)

1 cup corn meal

1 cup rye flour

1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup molasses

2 cups buttermilk

Combine all dry ingredients.  Mix together buttermilk and molasses.  Add a little at a time to dry ingredients.  Stir enough to blend.  Place in 2 greased 1-pound coffee cans.  Cover with foil and tie foil down.  Place cans on metal rack in bottom of slow cooker.  Pour 2 cups hot water around cans.  Cover and cook on high for 2 1/2 to 3 hours.  Remove from cooker and let stand about 10 minutes before removing from cans.

My Notes

I mixed the dry ingredients in a big bowl and the wet ingredients in a large, glass measuring cup.

That made it easy to pour the wet ingredients into the dry while mixing.

The challenge today is getting metal coffee cans as most brands I've seen use either bags or plastic containers.  Fortunately, I already had some cans from long ago that I saved for such purposes.  They look rusty but once they were cleaned and greased (I used cooking spray), I did not worry about them.

My challenge was realizing the two cans won't fit in my crock pot.  But they did fit in a bigger kettle, with enough room that I could put the lid on the kettle. 

I started heating water in my tea kettle.

A test fit.

After I put half the batter into a can, I decided to add two handfuls of raisins to the other half.  My recall was that I loved the raisins.

Each can was filled to about the same height.  (Whew!)

Raisin on the left.

Then on with the foil and the ties, and into the kettle!  Two cups of water put enough to bring the level up to the bottom of the rack.

You can see the water in the bottom.

After the lid went on, I turned the heat onto medium high until steam started coming out, then I turned the heat down so that the steam was barely coming out.

Every 30 minutes or so I checked on the water level, replenishing with hot water as needed.

After 2 1/2 hours I decided (hoped) it was done.  The cans were removed and set on the counter to cool.  Then I used a narrow spatula to loosen the sides of the bread.  The loaves popped out of the cans easily.

The Verdict

I chose to sample the one with raisins.  Slicing it in the middle gave me a view that matched my recall.  I could see they were cooked all the way through, too.

I ate it plain and also tried it with a little cream cheese.

It tasted exactly as I remembered it!  Sweet from the raisins with a heavy, almost meaty texture or mouthfeel.  Rich with molasses flavor but not overwhelming.  This is a bold bread, not delicate at all.  The cream cheese was a good compliment.

This was easy to make and a good success. I think it would make a good sandwich bread (with or without the raisins) with ham or chicken and cheese, or as a breakfast bread.  But it also makes a good "just as a snack" bread.

Happy New Year 2022 - A recipe from a Peanuts cartoon cookbook

This post starts my eleventh year of food blogging.  This blog has had over 103,000 page views, which pleases me to no end.  I am honored and humbled that people want to look at it.  There are 242 posts, most of which were successful.

I also started another food blog, the California Food Project, in which I am exploring the history of California food stuffs and recipes from my "interested amateur" point-of-view.  I've also been translating an historical cookbook that relates to California food history and trying out some of the recipes.  Those results are posted on at least the CA Food Project blog; some are on this blog, too. 

The last two years have been challenging, to say the least:  a pandemic and its associated struggles, supply chain issues, political stress, learning to work from home, and more.  I found myself thinking back to happier, less stressful times.  For me, that often means my childhood.  While I don't mind the responsibilities and expectations of adulthood, there are days when I wish I could return to the innocence of my youth.

A conversation with my friend, GL, a life-long Peanuts cartoon fan, made me think of this cookbook:

Cartoons by Charles Schulz. Recipes by June Dutton.  Pub. 1969 by Determined Productions, Inc.

It is one of the first cookbooks I ever owned.  (The wear and tear on it shows its age!)  The even numbered pages have a recipe, and the odd numbered pages have an appropriate Peanuts cartoon.  The intensely pink paper with bright green borders is representative of the popular colors of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The recipes are accessible to a novice cook, with examples like "Frieda's French Toast" and "Red Baron Root Beer" but also increase in complexity, like "Linus Van Pelt's Mother's Clam Chowder" and "Snoopy's Pizza."  As a kid, I know I learned from it.

I decided I wanted to start off 2022 by revisiting the memories of my childhood with a recipe that is tasty, simple to make, and fun to share with others:  lemon square cookies (page 84).

Lucy's Lemon Squares

1 cup flour

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup powdered sugar

Blend with fingertips until well mixed.  Pat evenly into the bottom of an 8 x 8 inch baking pan.  Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees.  Meanwhile, beat together:

2 eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

dash of salt

Pour over baked crust and return to oven for 20-25 minutes at same temperature.

Cool on rack.  Cut in squares.  Sprinkle with sifted, powdered sugar.

My Notes

The butter was cold from the refrigerator and I wanted it that way.  I cut it into pieces before putting into the flour and powdered sugar.

Butter not cut up enough

These pieces were not small enough to blend with the dry ingredients.  I used a knife to cut them up into smaller pieces while in the bowl, then I was able to mix and blend them using my fingers.  I worked it until the mixture formed a dough, like a pie crust dough.

The pan I used (can you believe I don't have an 8 x 8 inch pan?) was 11 x 7, so more square inches than the recipe called for, but I used it anyway.  I patted the dough evenly across the bottom.  I remember to grease the pan first!

It baked for about 17 minutes and then it looked ready.  My oven sometimes runs a bit hot so I watched it for the last five minutes and pulled it early.

While the crust was baking, I mixed the topping ingredients, except the baking powder.  I put that in just before pouring the mixture over the crust.  Note that you put the topping on while the crust is still hot.

 

The pan went back into the oven for 15 minutes.  The lovely scent warned me it was ready, even before the 20 minutes was up.  

After it cooled, I sprinkled on some powdered sugar and cut it into rectangles (yes, not squares!).

The Verdict

I cut it into 15 pieces.  The ones near the edges caramelized somewhat so they were harder to remove than the ones in the center.  However, I did get them out.

You can see the layers.

Pretty with a light sprinkle of powdered sugar.

The taste:  the crust was crispy and very buttery.  The topping was lemony and sweet.  Not tart at all.   It was very rich!

As a kid, I would have loved this.  As an adult, it was very sweet, and I wanted it to be less sweet and more lemony and more tart.  One piece was enough.  I think I would decrease the sugar in the topping and increase lemon juice.  But it was good.  I think it would be nice to take to a gathering where I knew kids would be around.  Still, I would cut them into small pieces -- yes, it is that rich.  

So success.  Mostly success for kids, so it succeeded in reminding me of my childhood.

Happy New Year!  May we have a good and bountiful year.