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Dessert

Virginia Corn Pone

A baked cornmeal cake made with milk, butter, salt, baking powder, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Virginia Corn Pone

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the corn meal base

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Add salt and corn meal, and cook for 30 minutes.

  3. Stir in the butter and let it cool.

Mix and bake

  1. Mix the baking powder with 1 tablespoon of cold water and add it to the mixture along with the well-beaten egg.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

  4. Cut into pie-shaped pieces to serve.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Egg
Binds the batter and adds richness and structure as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pone rise and turn lighter in texture.
Corn meal
Forms the main body of the pone, thickening into a soft, porridge-like base.
Milk
Cooks with the corn meal to make the base and adds moisture and richness.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Cooling before adding the egg and baking powder. If the cornmeal mixture is still very hot, the beaten egg can scramble and the baking powder loses gas early, so the pone may rise poorly.

“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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