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Bread

Virginia Egg Bread

A cornmeal bread made with milk, eggs, lard, and baking powder, baked until the milk is absorbed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and walnut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,236 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Virginia Egg Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Boil the milk.

  2. Pour the boiling milk over the cornmeal and lard, reserving a little milk to dissolve the baking powder.

  3. Add the egg yolks, beaten light, and the dissolved baking powder to the mixture.

  4. Slowly pour the milk mixture over the cornmeal while stirring continuously to prevent lumps.

Bake

  1. Finally, fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Bake in a deep pan or pudding dish until the milk is thoroughly absorbed.

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 + walnuttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,236 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Egg + walnuttop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,037 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whites, folded in last, lighten its texture as it bakes.
Cornmeal
Forms the body of the bread, soaking up the hot milk to set into a soft mass.
Milk
Hydrates the cornmeal and provides the moisture that gives the bread its tender crumb.
Royal baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the bread rise and become lighter.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens the texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only if they are beaten stiff and folded in gently at the end. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, so the bread bakes up denser and less risen.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg):

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Cocoafits about as well
  3. Peasfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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