Well, I tried a few tricks, as well as the overnight method, and found that you really only have a couple of good options.
My favorite beans by far were the ones I cooked start to finish in the oven. I first soaked them in salted water for several hours, drained them, then mixed them with all the other ingredients in a Dutch oven. With the cover on the pot, I slid it into a 250°F oven before going to bed. Thirteen hours later, I had the most beautiful pot of Boston baked beans imaginable. They were silky and tender, with a richly caramelized and browned crust on top and a thickened, sweet-savory sauce that coated each and every bean—the thickening was the result of bean starches leaching out into the cooking liquid during all those slow, sleepy hours. Most of the beans remained whole, or mostly whole, but some broke down, which enriched the sauce—precisely what we want when we don’t want to resort to ketchup.
