Boston Brown bread is the traditional accompaniment to baked beans, but it’s equally delicious with smoked salmon or tangy cream cheese. We’ve made Valentine’s Day Tea sandwiches with heart cut-outs featuring red-currant flavoured cream cheese. 
Red Currant Cream Cheese Tea Sandwiches
Tangy red currant jelly and silky cream cheese pair beautifully with moist Boston Brown bread.
Ingredients
Scale
For the Boston Brown Bread:
- 78 g or ¾ c pumpernickel flour
- 106 g or ¾ c yellow cornmeal
- 85 g or ¾ c whole wheat flour
- ¾ tsp baking soda
- ¾ tsp kosher salt
- 106 g or ¾ c currants
- 340 g or 1 ½ c buttermilk
- 170 g or ½ c molasses
For the filling:
- 227 g or 8 oz cream cheese, softened
- 4 tbsp red currant jelly
Instructions
Make the bread:
- Lightly grease an 8 ½” x 4 ½” loaf pan and preheat the oven to 325°F.
- In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the pumpernickel flour, cornmeal, whole wheat flour, baking soda, salt, and currants.
- In a separate small bowl, beat together the buttermilk and molasses until smooth.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
- Spoon the batter into the pan and cover with buttered aluminum foil, ballooning it in the centre to allow for expansion. Fasten the foil tightly to the edges of the pan so the bread steams a bit.
- Bake the bread for 1 hour before removing the foil and baking for another 10 minutes. The bread is done when a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean, or with just a few moist crumbs clinging to it. Note: the middle of the loaf may be slightly sunken; this is normal.
Assemble the sandwiches:
- Cut 36 (2 ¼-inch) squares from the bread slices. Discard the crusts.
- Using a 1-inch heart-shaped cutter, remove the centres from half of the bread squares.
- In a small bowl, beat the cream cheese and jelly. Spread approximately 1 tbsp on each intact bread square. Top with the squares with heart cutouts. Serve immediately.
Notes
If you don’t have a heart-shaped cutter, you can use a square cutter with one corner pointed down. Then, using a small round cutter, cut out two half-moons from the top two sides of the square. Voila – heart shape.
Boston Brown Bread adapted from King Arthur Baking.
Adapted from Tea Time Magazine
Beautiful display for valentine’s day. That plate is so familiar looking and perfect for your table setting. Happy Valentine’s day from Hawaii
I hope your Mum would be happy with how her plates are being used. . Enjoy the sunshine in Hawaii. Bitterly cold and snowing here. Again. Sigh.