A few months ago my addiction to recipes with long ingredients, preferably obscure, led me to make Smitten Kitchen's 19 ingredient Russian Black bread (and Julia Child's ratatouille, lasagna Bolognese from scratch and many four layer cakes). The endeavor left our cupboard overflowing with bags of rye, cornmeal and whole wheat flours. Determined to use them again in a more modest recipes, I stumbled upon a recipes for Boston Brown Bread in Amanda Hesser's NYTimes cookbook.
Boston brown bread is a traditional New England bread, made with “brown flour,” or a mix that usually contains a combination of wheat, whole wheat, rye and corn meal. According to some research on the internet, it was invented by settlers as a way to supplement the more expensive flour (wheat) with flours that were in abundance (rye and corn). It also traditionally contains milk (or buttermilk), baking soda, molasses or maple syrup and raisins. I added some walnuts as well.
