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Yorkville Corn Cake

A baked corn cake made with corn, butter, flour, milk, egg yolks, egg whites, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Yorkville Corn Cake

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 corn

  1. Cut the corn from the cob.

Make the custard base

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and stir in the flour.

  2. Add the milk and bring to a boil.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and add them to the boiling milk carefully.

  4. Stir in the corn and salt.

Bake and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold them into the mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into 2 deep plates and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

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

Corn
Provides the main bulk and sweet corn flavour of the cake.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the base as it melts with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so it holds its shape when baked.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that sets into a soft, custard-like texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the mixture, helping it set when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the mixture and help it rise in the oven.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks to the boiling milk. If the yolks go in too fast or without care, they can scramble into lumps instead of blending smoothly. Adding them gradually while stirring keeps the base smooth and even.

“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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