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Dessert

Wafer Corn Bread

Thin cornmeal bread baked until brown, served as a wafer-like snack.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Wafer Corn Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the cornmeal, baking powder, and salt thoroughly.

  2. Add the melted shortening, molasses (if using), and the well-beaten egg, then mix well.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into greased shallow pans, about ½ inch deep.

  2. Bake until brown on both sides, ensuring the bread is less than ½ inch thick when baked.

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

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

  2. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Egg + molassestop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,879 recipes

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Provides the main structure and the grainy, corn-flavored body of the wafer.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to give the wafer a light, tender lift.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and helps the wafer brown.
Milk
Hydrates the cornmeal and gives the batter its pourable moisture.

The step that matters

Keeping the batter shallow. Spreading the batter about ½ inch deep lets heat reach the centre quickly, so the wafer dries and browns evenly on both sides instead of staying soft inside.

“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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