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Dessert

Corn Pates

Corn pates are baked shells filled with a corn and breadcrumb mixture, topped with butter and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Corn Pates

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Chop the corn finely.

  2. Stir in bread crumbs until the mixture is stiff.

  3. Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill pate shells two-thirds full with the mixture.

  2. Place a piece of butter on top of each filling.

  3. Pour 1 tablespoon of cream over each shell.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown.

  5. Serve hot.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  5. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 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

Corn
Provides the main bulk and sweet flavor of the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and stiffen the mixture so it holds its shape in the shells.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, helping the filling stay tender and browning evenly.

The step that matters

Stirring in the bread crumbs until stiff. Crumbs must be added until the mixture is firm enough to hold its shape. Too few leave the filling loose and wet, so it spreads and may not set in the shell. Too many make it dry and dense.

“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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