I’m a decent cook. I know my way around the kitchen, though admittedly I’m better with cooking than baking. This comes with a reasonable store of implicit food knowledge that one would hope I could put to good use, but the sisters beguile me. They’re snickering even now. The recipes leave out (I feel purposely) important details that if I were not so in love I would recognize and correct. Instead, I think to myself: “surely, the Shakers would not make a mistake. I’m about to be let in on some miraculous culinary trick by which sugar, lemons and eggs magically integrate themselves into a stunning lemon custard without so much as a stir on my part. It’s going to be amazing!” Except it is decidedly unamazing. Here I’m speaking of the promising Shaker Lemon Pie that calls for macerated, thinly sliced lemons (peel and all). The lemon slices are placed in the pie crust and then four beaten eggs are poured on top. One would think that these beaten, but non-integrated eggs would form a disgusting overcooked omelet hovering over bitter and chewy lemon rinds with hardened solid sugar on the bottom. That’s what I thought too so you can imagine my surprise when that was exactly the result.
Those Shakers, they’re smart though – like pretty women who know precisely the minimum amount of attention necessary to keep their doting, male sidekick helplessly orbiting and endlessly believing he might just have a chance. I just got that scant teaspoon doled out in the form of a lovely, dark and heavy brown bread – hearty and indulgent, rich with molasses and stone-ground cornmeal.
Brown bread is not a Shaker invention. I’ve found some version of it in nearly every compilation of early American cookery, as well as in the collections of modern, but rural, farmhouse cooking. It’s associated with Boston and predates modern ovens. Shakers, much like many early and contemporary Americans, just happened to eat it as well, but given that this recipe is from one of their collections, I’m going to take it as a sign that maybe they’re softening to me.
The bread is steamed rather than baked. The batter is poured into a greased crock, which is then placed in a larger vessel. Simmering water is poured half-way up the outside of the crock and then the whole crock/kettle contraption simmers away covered for several hours until a perfectly moist, dense and delicious bread emerges. This is precisely the kind of culinary magic I’ve been looking for. A simple batter with no fats and no eggs steams up rich and moist, at once hearty and carnal.
Brown Bread
Note: The grade of molasses will significantly change the flavor of the bread. I prefer a robust molasses flavor and use an unsulfured blackstrap molasses, which produces a dark and earthy sweet loaf. Others may prefer to use a mild molasses.
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup rye flour
1 cup stone ground cornmeal (do not use conventional cornmeal)
1½ teaspoons baking soda
1½ teaspoons salt
¾ cup molasses
2 cups buttermilk (or sour cream, plain yogurt, or sour milk)
1 cup raisins
Butter a 2-quart crock, round Pyrex baking dish, or large coffee tin. Smaller tin cans can be used, but you will need multiple. Ensure that your baking vessel(s) will fit inside a larger soup pot with enough clearance to ensure the pot lid will be secure.
Whisk together both flours, cornmeal, baking soda, and salt. Stir in molasses, buttermilk, and raisins. Fill your buttered crock, dish, or tin can two-thirds full of batter.
Place a rack in your soup pot to keep your baking dish from sitting directly on the bottom of the pot*. Pour boiling water around baking dish until it reaches half way up the outside of the baking dish. Cover soup pot and steam bread in slowly simmering water for 3 hours. Remove from water and allow to cool on rack for 10 minutes before unmolding. Serve warm or cooled to room temperature.
* If you do not have a rack (like me), loosely crumpled aluminum foil can be used to lift the baking dish slightly off the bottom of the pot.
Sourcing: King Arthur Whole-Wheat Flour, Arrowhead Mills Organic Rye Flour, Falls Mill Stone-Ground Cornmeal, Wholesome Sweeteners Organic Unsulfured Molasses, Natural by Nature Grass-Fed Buttermilk, Whole Foods Unsulfured Thompson Raisins
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