Why it works: Flour and milk 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 Cakes
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 large bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, sweet milk, sour milk, egg, salt, and baking soda. Mix until well combined.
Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.
Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.
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.
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and milk 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
- Cornmeal
- Forms the bulk of the batter and gives the cakes their corn flavour and coarse texture.
- All-purpose flour
- Adds gluten-based structure so the cakes hold together.
- Egg
- Binds the batter and helps set the crumb as it bakes.
- Sour milk
- Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cakes rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
The step that matters
Mix until well combined. Cornmeal and flour should be evenly hydrated and the baking soda evenly distributed so the leavening reacts uniformly. Clumps of dry ingredient or pockets of soda can leave the cakes dense or unevenly risen.
“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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