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Dessert

Pone

A sour milk cake made with cornmeal, flour, baking soda, salt, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pone

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the cornmeal, sour milk, melted butter, coarse sea salt, and the yolks of the eggs.

  2. Sift in the flour and baking soda, then mix everything thoroughly.

  3. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered shallow pan.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes.

  3. Cut into square pieces to serve.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Cornmeal (in the method)
Provides the main body and structure of the bread.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acid to produce gas that makes the pone rise.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and binding, while whipped whites add airy lift and structure.
Melted butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives flavor.
Flour
Adds gluten-free-independent structure that helps hold the cornmeal together.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whites whipped to stiff peaks trap air that gives the pone its lift. Folding gently keeps that foam intact, while vigorous stirring would deflate it and leave a dense result.

“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.

More pone recipes

Corn 45Cornmeal 16Sweet Potato 15Potato 5Apple 4Indian 4

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