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Southern Batter Bread

A Southern batter bread made with eggs, sour milk, cornmeal, baking soda, lard, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Southern Batter 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 the batter

  1. Preheat a skillet over medium heat.

  2. Melt the lard in the hot skillet.

  3. In a bowl, combine the eggs, sour milk, and enough corn meal to achieve a griddle cake batter consistency.

  4. Stir in the baking soda and salt.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into the hot, greased skillet.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until light brown.

  3. Invert onto a plate 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 + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

  3. Egg + corntop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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 bread sets.
Sour milk
Provides moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Corn meal
Forms the body of the bread, giving it its main structure and texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Lard
Adds fat for a tender crumb and helps the surface brown in the hot skillet.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into the hot, greased skillet. Batter poured into a hot, greased pan begins to set and brown right away, which helps form a crust and keeps it from sticking. A cold pan lets the batter spread and stick.

“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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