Name: Florida Corn Cake
Ingredients: 1 egg; 1 teaspoon salt; 2 cups white cornmeal; 1 cup milk or water; 1 teaspoon sugar; 1 tablespoon baking powder; 1 tablespoon salt pork fat

Why it works: Milk and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,386 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Florida Corn Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and bake the batter

In a mixing bowl, combine the egg, salt, cornmeal, milk or water, sugar, baking powder, and salt pork fat, and mix all ingredients thoroughly.
Pour the mixture into two thin cake pans.
Bake until golden brown.

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.

Milk + porktop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,386 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + porktop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,387 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Eggs: Binds the batter and helps give the cakes structure as they set.
White cornmeal: Forms the main body of the cakes, giving them their grainy texture.
Baking powder: Releases gas that lifts the batter so the cakes rise and turn light.
Salt pork fat: Adds richness and fat that keeps the cakes tender and encourages browning.

“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.