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Bread

Corn Pone

A cornmeal cake baked in a skillet and oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Corn Pone

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Heat some drippings or butter in an iron skillet until smoking hot.

Make and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar, egg, salt, sour milk, baking soda, flour, and cornmeal until combined.

  2. Pour the batter into the hot skillet.

  3. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until cooked through.

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Meat + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,703 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Bind the batter and add structure as the cornbread sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Sour milk
Supplies acidity for the baking soda reaction and adds moisture.
Cornmeal
Provides the coarse, grainy body that defines the pone.
Flour
Gives the batter enough structure to hold its shape when baked.
Meat drippings or butter
Fat that heats in the skillet and helps create a crisp, browned crust.

The step that matters

Heat the skillet until smoking hot before pouring the batter. A very hot fat-coated pan starts the crust setting and browning the moment batter touches it, preventing sticking and giving a crisp edge. A cool pan lets the batter soak in fat and bake pale and greasy.

“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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