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Boiled Corn Bread

A moist, sweet bread made from cornmeal, flour, milk, buttermilk, molasses, and leavening, boiled in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Boiled Corn Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift the baking soda and cream of tartar into the flour.

  2. Mix all the ingredients thoroughly together.

Boil and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered tin pail and cover it closely.

  2. Place the pail in a kettle two-thirds full of boiling water.

  3. Cover the kettle and boil steadily for three hours, replenishing with boiling water as needed.

  4. Serve hot with butter.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Buttermilk + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Buttermilk + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar and acidic buttermilk to release gas, helping the bread rise.
Cream of tartar
Acid that reacts with the baking soda to produce lift in the batter.
Buttermilk or sour cream
Adds acidity that activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the cornbread.
Cornmeal
Provides the main corn flavor and a coarse, crumbly structure.
Flour
Gives the batter structure so it holds together after steaming.

The step that matters

Keep the kettle boiling steadily for three hours. Steaming cooks the bread gently with moisture, so the water must stay at a steady boil and be topped up with boiling water. If the water level drops or the boil stops, the bread cooks unevenly and can turn heavy or soggy.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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