Skip to main content
Main

Old Fashioned Sweet Corn Bread

A sweet, oven-baked bread made with cornmeal, wheat flour, eggs, sugar, milk, butter, baking powder, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Old Fashioned Sweet Corn Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Beat the yolks of the eggs with the sugar until well combined.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. Stir the sweet milk and butter into the egg yolk mixture.

  5. In another bowl, combine the cornmeal, wheat flour, baking powder, and salt. Sift the baking powder and salt into the cornmeal and flour mixture.

Bake

  1. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, folding in the beaten egg whites gently.

  2. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish and bake for 45 minutes, being careful not to let it burn on the bottom.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + wheattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks add richness and binding, while whipped whites lighten the batter and help it rise.
Cornmeal
Provides the main body and the coarse, grainy texture of the cornbread.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten-based structure so the cornbread holds together better than cornmeal alone.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cornbread rise in the oven.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crumb brown at the edges.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the dry ingredients and adds moisture and tenderness.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten whites hold the air that lifts the batter. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from collapsing, so the cornbread rises lighter.

“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.

You might also like

Wheat GruelWheat Gruel6 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes