Boston Brown Bread and Pressure Cooker Baked Beans

Boston Brown Bread with Baked Beans is a Saturday night meal tradition in New England that has roots going back to colonial days in the 1600s. The bread combines the English method for making steamed puddings with grains that were native to North America, or at least grew well in the harsh northern climate, and were inexpensive compared to white wheat flour. Both the bread and a pot of beans could be slow-cooked in the hearth of a fireplace in a time when ovens and stoves were scarce.

It’s a truly heritage food from early American history in which colonial settlers combined a familiar old world cooking technique with corn, which was a new grain to them, as well as familiar grains like rye and whole wheat which had been common to the working poor folk of northern Europe. This was a food for hard working people. White wheat flour was precious and had to be reserved for special delicacies.

It came to be a tradition in New England to make Boston Brown Bread in leftover coffee cans that gave the bread a cylindrical shape. It can still be purchased in cans in the New England region.

It’s much more practical to make this bread in a standard 8½” x 4½” loaf pan that most people have easy access to rather than messing around with old coffee cans. This recipe can also be made in a 10-cup Bundt pan which makes a pretty cool looking bread.

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Anyone who’s tried to make traditional baked beans from scratch knows that they take hours and hours to make properly. I’ve come up with a very convenient way to make them in a pressure cooker that takes a fraction of the time and tastes great. I suppose they’re technically not “baked” beans, but everyone knows what that style means.

Baked Beans on slices of Boston Brown Bread is a hearty, stick-to-the-ribs meal that goes well with cool Fall weather, football and playoff baseball, or putting the garden to bed before winter. Or just enjoying cool evenings and the golden, rust-colored leaves still hanging onto the trees.

Boston Brown Bread

Ingredients:

• ¾ cup Whole Wheat Flour
• ¾ cup Rye Flour
• ¾ cup Yellow Cornmeal
• 1 tsp. Baking Soda
• 1 tsp. Sea Salt
• 1½ cups Buttermilk
• ½ cup Molasses
• 2 tbsp. Butter, melted and slightly cooled

Directions:

Step 1: Preheat oven to 325°F. Whisk ¾ cup whole wheat flour, ¾ cup rye flour, ¾ cup cornmeal, 1 tsp. baking soda and 1 tsp. salt together in a large bowl.

Step 2: Whisk 1½ cups buttermilk, ½ cup molasses and 2 tbsp. melted butter together in a second bowl.

Step 3: Add the buttermilk mixture to the flour mixture and stir until combined.

Step 4: Spray an 8½” x 4½” loaf pan or a 10-cup Bundt pan with non-stick cooking spray and pour the mixture into the pan. Tamp the pan down a few times and allow to settle for a couple of minutes. Place the bread pan in a baking dish with a cover and pour hot water into the baking dish until the water comes halfway up the outside of the bread pan. Cover the baking dish with a lid and bake for one hour.

Baked Beans

Ingredients:

• 1 cup Great Northern Beans
• 1 cup Pinto Beans
• 2 Bay Leaves
• 7 cups Water
• ¼ tsp. Baking Soda
• 2 cups Onion, chopped
• 3 tbsp. Garlic, chopped
• ½ lb. Bacon, diced
• ⅓ cup Molasses
• 3 tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce
• 8 tsp. Dry Mustard Powder
• 3 tsp. Ground Black Pepper
• 4 tsp. Sea Salt

Directions:

Cook beans, bay leaves, and ¼ tsp. baking soda in 7 cups water in a pressure cooker on high for 10 minutes. Let depressurize and reserve 2 cups liquid. Drain beans and rinse.

Sauté ½ lb. bacon, 2 cups onions, and 3 tbsp. garlic. Return beans and combine all remaining ingredients in the pressure cooker with the 2 cups of reserved liquid and cook on high for 10 minutes.

***There will be a fair amount of liquid left after cooking that will need to be drained, but it’s a good idea to let the beans absorb as much liquid as they can.