Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Virginia Corn Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a large bowl, combine cornmeal and salt with half of the milk; mix well.
Add melted butter and beaten eggs, then stir in the remaining milk.
Cook the cakes
Pour batter onto a preheated griddle, making cakes of uniform size.
Cook until golden brown on both sides.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cornmeal
- Forms the body of the cakes, giving them their grainy, sturdy texture.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as the cakes set on the griddle.
- Sweet milk
- Hydrates the cornmeal into a pourable batter and adds moisture to the cakes.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat for richer flavor and helps the cakes brown on the griddle.
The step that matters
Cook until golden brown on both sides. The griddle must be preheated so the cakes brown evenly and set before flipping. Starting on a cool surface lets them spread and stick, and they may cook through unevenly.
“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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