The joy of brown bread
For as long as I can remember, my favorite bread, the bread that I still crave above all breads, has come in a can. It's called brown bread, or outside of New England, where it is mostly unheard of, Boston brown bread.
My grandmother, whose family came from Portland, Maine, a brown-bread holy land, would bake it often, sliding the dense, brown loaf out of an old bean can, slicing it in thick discs and smearing cream cheese across each surface.
But generally, in a pinch, on a Saturday night, served with a plate of baked beans and hot dogs, my brown bread came from a gold and red B & M Brown Bread can. It came from a can because, in keeping with old New England tradition, B & M steamed its brown bread in a can, never baked it.
Brown bread was always a regional specialty but it has become even more so. In fact, brown bread, as sweet and moist as cake, is fast becoming a rarity in New England too.
Which is why I was dumbfounded to see it on a menu at Floriole Cafe & Bakery in Chicago's Lincoln Park.
“That means Irish brown bread, right?” I asked the guy at the counter, assuming they were making that more commonly spotted tangy, yeastless bread. No, he said, this bread is brown, with molasses and ...
“Made in a can?” I asked.
“Made in a can,” he said.
I asked for a loaf. Floriole was sold out, but baking some more.
So I returned to Floriole on a recent Friday morning, and Alex Roman, head bread baker, took me into the kitchen and unveiled three loaves of brown bread, each as cylindrical as a grain silo.
He said, looking down at his work: “I think of it as the original bran muffin.
“It's humble. From what I know, created by colonial New Englanders, with rye and cornmeal because they were preserving their reserves of other flours,” said Roman. “They steamed it because, without ovens, they cooked in open fires.”
The origin is a bit sketchy, but that's mostly it: rye and wheat were cheaper and readier. When mixed with molasses (for sweetness), brown bread became a variation on steamed pudding.
When the Erie Canal was completed in the early 19th century, New England had access to refined wheats and developed a taste for white breads. The long, slow obsolescence of brown bread began. That's one of the origin tales.
Roman sliced his loaf into discs familiar from my childhood and spread butter and jam across a piece.
Roman has never tasted B & M's bread in a can. But he is a fine steward, using dark blackstrap molasses, buttermilk, rye flour.
He watched me quickly devour my first slice of his terrific brown bread and said: “I have become very interested in reviving old breads. I guess I see it as my responsibility to keep some traditions alive.”
Prep: 20 minutesBake: 40 to 50 minutesMakes: 4 loaves, about 10 half-inch slices per loafRecipe adapted from Floriole bakery. You will need four cans for baking the bread. Head bread baker Alex Roman suggests 28- or 32-ounce tomato cans. We also had good luck with 11-ounce coffee cans.Make sure to remove the labels and to wash off any adhesive (Goo Gone helps). Butter the cans inside very well so that the baked loaves come out easily.3 tablespoons soft butter for buttering the cans1¾ cups fine white cornmeal2¼ cups whole rye flour2 cups whole wheat flour2½ teaspoons kosher salt3 teaspoons baking powder2½ teaspoons baking soda2½ cups buttermilk2¾ cups blackstrap molasses5 eggsHeat oven to 325 degrees. Butter your cans using a pastry brush.Put the dry ingredients in a bowl; whisk to combine.In another bowl, add all the wet ingredients, whisking to combine.Add the dry ingredients to the wet; mix until just incorporated. Be careful not to over-mix, the mixture should be the consistency of a thick pancake batter.Evenly distribute the batter among the 4 cans; each should be about three-quarters full. Slam the cans onto the table to level the batter.Transfer the tins onto a rimmed baking sheet. (The baking sheet is used to keep you from having to deep clean your oven if the batter should overflow.)Bake, 20 minutes; rotate pan, then bake for another 20 minutes. Test the bread by inserting a cake tester, or a long wooden skewer down the center of the bread; it should come out clean. If not, bake 5 to 10 minutes more.Remove cans from the oven; allow to cool, 10 minutes. Run a butter knife around the edges of the breads; slide the loaves from the cans. Cool completely.
