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Boiled Corn Bread

A boiled bread made with cornmeal, flour, sweet milk, buttermilk, molasses, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt.

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

Mix the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine sweet milk, buttermilk (or sour cream), and molasses.

  2. Sift baking soda and cream of tartar into the flour, then mix all ingredients thoroughly.

Boil and serve

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

  2. Place the pail in a kettle filled two-thirds with boiling water.

  3. Cover the kettle and boil steadily for three hours, adding 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

Buttermilk or sour cream
Adds acidity that reacts with the leavening and gives a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the milk and cream of tartar to produce gas for rising.
Cream of tartar
Provides additional acid that works with the baking soda to leaven the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the cornbread.
Cornmeal
Gives the bread its characteristic grainy texture and corn flavor.
Flour
Provides structure so the batter holds together while steaming.

The step that matters

Boiling steadily with water topped up. Steam from the boiling water cooks the batter gently inside the sealed pail. If the water level drops or the boil weakens, the bread can dry out or cook 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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