Boston Brown Bread from the slow cooker

If you were raised in New England, I don't have to tell you what Boston Brown Bread is. For everyone else, the best I can do is to say that it's something like a muffin crossed with an English pudding – sold still occupying the can in which it was presumably baked. The bread pops out in one perfect, dark, moist, raisin-stuffed piece. My favorite breakfast as a child was thick slices of "brown–bread–in–a–can", toasted and slathered with butter.

I had largely forgotten about it, until I ran across a one–paragraph recipe in one of my Father–in–law's cookbooks: Crockery Cooking by Alexis Durrell. He had never tried the recipe (although he did point out that the crayon scribbles on the same page were made by my husband). Frankly, I was dubious – the recipe on the facing page was for “beef tongue, pickled”, after all – but the brown bread it produces is perfect, and far superior to its supermarket counterpart.

Don't be put off by the long cooking time, which all happens in the ever–forgiving slow cooker. But don't be tempted to use the cooker's delay timer, because this bread should be cooked immediately after it's mixed. Feel free to leave out the nuts or raisins if that's your preference, but be aware that the bread won't fill up the can completely without them.

For this recipe you'll need a big 28–ounce can, the sort that generally holds crushed tomatoes. Wash it out well, and dry it completely. If you have one of the newer can–openers that cuts a safe, smooth–edged lid, you may save this and use it as a topper during cooking instead of aluminum foil. After cooking, the can may be washed and re-used many times. –Rebecca Faill