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Bread

White Corn Bread

A quick baked bread made with cornmeal, flour, eggs, milk, butter, baking powder, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

White Corn Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the batter

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl without separating the whites and yolks.

  2. Add the milk to the beaten eggs.

  3. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.

  4. Pour the boiling water over the cornmeal and let it cool.

  5. Add the sifted flour mixture to the cooled cornmeal, followed by the milk and eggs.

  6. Melt the butter and add it to the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 25 minutes.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

White cornmeal
Provides the main body and corn flavour of the bread.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set into a firm crumb when baked.
All-purpose flour
Adds structure so the bread holds together rather than crumbling.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the bread rise and turn light.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling water over the cornmeal and let it cool. Boiling water swells the cornmeal starch and softens the grains, so the bread becomes moist instead of gritty. Letting it cool before adding the eggs prevents the eggs from scrambling and keeps the batter smooth.

“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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