Easy Boston Brown Bread Recipe In A Can

Hi Bold Bakers, have you ever seen anyone make a loaf of bread without an oven and in a tin can? Sounds kinda crazy but it's absolutely delicious. Today we are making Boston Brown Bread in a can. Here's what we're gonna do. Start out in a nice big large bowl and I'm going to add in a little bit of all purpose flour. Next a little bit of finely ground cornmeal. Now make sure that it's finely ground because if it's coarse then it will end up being hard to cook and actually quite lumpy and it won't cook out. Next we're gonna add some rye flour. Now let me tell you this bread actually comes from the colonial times from New England when they didn't have ovens in the 1800s, like late 1800s and they would steam bread on the stove top and they would use all purpose flour and they'd use rye flour just like this. And however if you do not have rye flour, you know back then it was very inexpensive and it was plentiful, you can always use whole wheat flour and that will work really well too. Next we're gonna add in a little bit of baking powder to help the bread rise. Little bit of baking soda. Just smash up any of those little lumps in my hand. And then a little bit of salt. And then just give those a whisk together. Now I learned about this bread years ago because I actually saw it for sale in stores, brown bread in a can, like what is that? It sounds kind of crazy but if you ask me it's actually a genius idea because like I said they didn't have ovens so they used to steam their bread. But steaming cakes, breads, puddings, whatever it is just makes them really lovely and moist and delicious and it's really easy to do. So I had to try this out and see if it worked. Those are our dry ingredients. All those different flours together, the cornmeal will like pump up and it will be nice and soft and then also the rye has really good flavour so it's just gonna be really delicious. Okay so now for our liquid. First off we're going to use some buttermilk, one of my favourite ingredients when making brown bread. I made my own here today because I didn't have any, look at that, lovely and thick and acidic. Perfect for our bread. Next into this we're going to add some molasses, also known as treacle. And this just gives lovely caramel tones to our bread, really lovely flavour and it also makes it really dark. And it adds moisture. And then give those a whisk together. And then straight into your dry ingredients. How much do we love a bread that you can make using very few pieces of kitchen equipment and just mix it all by hand. Give this a whisk together to hydrate all of that flour. In case you're wondering why cornmeal? When the cornmeal cooks, just like if you did on a pot, it'll puff up and it'll get really lovely and soft and that's what it's gonna do in this bread. It's going to make it really lovely and the texture just super moist. Look at that. It's soft, that's a runny batter. This is gonna cook up beautifully, look at that. Okay, lovely. Now, let's talk about the star of the show here. One large 28 ounce tin. I made tomato soup the other day so I saved the can. You just want a nice big can with no label and get any sticky stuff off and butter it really well on the inside. This is absolutely perfect. Once you mix up your batter, you do want to get it steaming pretty fast because the butter milk and the baking soda are already activating and we want that to happen in the steamer. Cover it over with foil, nice and tight. We don't want steam or any water getting in there while it's cooking. We want to keep it nice and dry. Okay, lovely, that's it. Head over to the stovetop with me and we'll put it in our steamer. So to steam your bread, you want a nice big pot that will fit your can. Inside I have a steaming tray. You can also use maybe an upturned baking tray. Fill your pot up with hot water just until you reach the bottom of your steamer. When your pot is simmering, put in your bread. Pop on the lid and just let it do its thing. So the bread only takes roughly around an hour. Sometimes it takes me 45 minutes, sometimes it takes a little bit longer. So you're talking around an hour, just check it at the 45 minute mark. If you put your finger on the top, you can usually press when it's nice and puffed up. That means it's done. So it's been some time. I can see my bread has risen and it's firm underneath my finger, so it is done. This is my favorite part, the unveiling. Wow, beautiful. Oh my gosh, it looks fantastic and I can feel it's so soft. When your bread has cooled down, it's time to slice it. And there's really only one way, just like a log. Do you see that texture? Do you see how soft that looks? Absolutely beautiful. You can't see the cornmeal because it puffed up, it soaked up the liquid and it disappeared into our bread. This dark color is from the rye and the molasses that we used. Two ingredients that are best friends. I have to have butter on my brown bread, so here it goes. You know, coming from Ireland, this is my kind of thing. Number one, I love anything steamed, especially cakes and breads. It is so soft, so moist. It has such a strong, kind of almost like stouty flavor that you get from like stout bread. The rich and it has fantastic flavor. It's great just like this, or you can toast it or have it on the side of a bowl of soup. It's just so comforting and delicious. While you're here, stick around. I've got hours more baking content for you to check out. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you back here again next week.