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Cornmeal Cookies

Cornmeal cookies made with melted fat, molasses, corn syrup, egg, sour milk, baking soda, cornmeal, and wheat flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 465 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Cornmeal Cookies

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine the melted fat, molasses, corn syrup, beaten egg, and sour milk.

  2. Sift the baking soda, cornmeal, and wheat flour together, then mix with the liquid ingredients.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake for 15 minutes.

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. Corn + wheattop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Molasses + syruptop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together272 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lifts the cookies.
Cornmeal
Gives the cookies their grainy texture and sturdy structure.
Wheat flour
Provides gluten for structure, holding the cookies together with the cornmeal.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and browning to the cookies.
Sour milk
Supplies acidity to activate the baking soda and adds moisture.

The step that matters

Mixing the dry ingredients into the liquids. Stirring only until combined keeps the batter tender. Overmixing develops gluten in the wheat flour, which can make the cookies tough. Adding the sifted dry ingredients promptly helps the baking soda react with the acidic sour milk while gas is still trapped in the batter.

“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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