Steamed Brown Bread
Before anyone was posting their sourdough starter on the internet, Canadians were making bread in tin cans on the stovetop. And honestly? It slaps.
This Steamed Brown Bread is one of those recipes that just sticks around for a reason. It came to us the way the best recipes do, passed along by someone who made it enough times that they didn’t need to measure anymore. We kept it exactly as written.
The method is old school and that’s the whole point. You’re not baking this bread, you’re steaming it. Batter goes into greased tin cans, gets covered with foil, and sits in a kettle of boiling water for two hours. It sounds a little wild if you’ve never seen it done, but this was completely normal in Canadian kitchens for generations. Families actually saved their tin cans for this recipe specifically.
What you get out of it is unlike anything that comes out of an oven. Dense, moist, sliced into rounds, with this deep rich flavour that comes from whole wheat flour, cornmeal, and a good pour of molasses. That’s really the heart of this recipe. Molasses was the everyday sweetener in Canadian kitchens long before white sugar was cheap and easy to come by. It was in everything, from baked beans to brown bread to butter tarts, and it gives this loaf a colour and flavour that nothing else can touch. We obviously have a soft spot for that.
No shortcuts, no updates. Just a good recipe that has held up for a very long time.
Steamed Brown Bread
This recipe is a classic Crosby Molasses recipe, meaning that it’s been passed down from generation to generation. Perfect with beans, this recipe is a delicious hit to the nostalgia feels. Cooked right in the can, the old fashion way.
Ingredients
- 2 cups whole wheat flour
- 1 cup cornmeal
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups buttermilk
- 3/4 cup molasses
Instructions
- Wash, dry and grease three 19 oz (540 ml) cans.
- Combine flour, cornmeal, soda and salt. Mix well.
- Combine milk and molasses. Immediately add the dry ingredients to this and stir. Pour into cans and cover with aluminum foil. Set cans on rack in a kettle of boiling water (the water must not be more than half way up the side of the cans.)
- Cover kettle tightly and steam for two hours or until the tops of the loaves spring back when lightly touched. Loosen bread from the sides and turn out on racks to cool. Serve immediately or wrap in foil and store.
Janet Mcmanus
I remember my Mom making this when I was a child from her mother’s recipe. ( I’m 78 so this was a long time ago. I loved it spread with butter as an after school treat. Also with molasses baked beans, of course.
I’m definitely going to make it again and try it out on my grands. Only thing is I have no idea what to set my modern oven to, to create the “right” steam.
Laurel
I may be reading the recipe wrong, but I think it’s cooked on the stove top, in a big “kettle” (a kettle to me is for making tea, but I think this is also a name for a large pot with a handle).