Skip to main content
Bread

Corn Cakes

Corn cakes are made from cornmeal, sour milk, egg, soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Corn and milk 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 ↓

Corn Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix corn meal, sour milk, beaten egg, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Add soda to neutralize the acid of the milk.

Cook

  1. Heat a griddle over medium heat.

  2. Pour batter onto the griddle and cook until golden brown on one side.

  3. Flip and cook until golden brown on the other side.

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

  3. Corn + eggtop 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

Corn meal
Provides the main body and grainy structure of the cakes.
Sour milk
Supplies liquid and acidity that reacts with the soda.
Beaten egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness to the cakes.
Soda
Neutralizes the milk's acid and helps the cakes rise and brown.

The step that matters

Add soda to neutralize the acid of the milk. Soda reacts with the acid in sour milk to release gas, which lifts the batter. Its amount must match the acidity, since too little leaves the cakes flat and too much can leave a soapy or bitter taste and an off color.

“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.

More corn cakes recipes

Green 20Indian 3Virginia 3 See all 125 →

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes