Boston Brown Bread
It's been a hectic week--no time for slow-rise baking--so I tried a baking-soda-raised recipe for Boston Brown Bread that I found in Stan Ginsberg's The Rye Baker. The recipe said to mix the ingredients together, put the batter in a greased loaf pan, seal the pan with greased aluminum foil, and bake at 200°F/90°C for 3 hours.
After 3 hours, I unwrapped the loaf and found it very much underdone. So I put it back in the oven uncovered at 350°F/175°C for another half hour. This proved to be too much time, as the top few millimeters came out crunchy. This loaf really needs more than 3 hrs covered baking time, at least in my uncalibrated oven.
After it cooled, I double-wrapped it in plastic. After ~12 hrs, the moisture redistributed itself and the crunchiness went away. The loaf turned out moist and tasty in the end.
Can anyone comment on their recipe and technique for baking Boston Brown Bread that might help me avoid the underbake/overbake problem next time?
I like to use a water bath on the stove top. Put your loaf pan in a stock pot with enough water to come half way up the loaf pan's height, bring to a simmer, cover and cook for three hours.
See Fanny Farmer's Cookbook for my source.
gary
The most recent Boston brown bread I've seen was steamed and it looked so moist and soft; cake like.
Ive baked this bread several times in lots of different ovens at 200F for 3 hours and it's never disappointed me. You may want to use a couple of thermometers to map your oven's heat zones. I give directions in "The Rye Baker."
Stan
...I shall do so.
I am slowly working my way through The Rye Baker--great book! I will get to the Westphalian Pumpernickel one of these days.