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Virginia Corn Bread

A moist, slightly sweet cornbread made with cornmeal, flour, lard, milk, eggs, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Virginia Corn Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Sift together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt, and baking powder.

  3. Rub in the cold lard until well combined.

Make and bake the batter

  1. Add the beaten eggs and then the milk, mixing into a moderately stiff batter.

  2. Pour the batter into well-greased shallow baking pans.

  3. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes until golden brown.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

White cornmeal
Forms the bulk of the crumb and gives the cornbread its characteristic texture and flavor.
All-purpose flour
Adds gluten-based structure so the bread holds together better than cornmeal alone.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking to give structure and richness.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cornbread rises and becomes lighter.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes to a moist texture.
Milk
Hydrates the cornmeal and flour so they form a batter and adds moisture.

The step that matters

Rub in the cold lard until well combined. Cold fat broken into the dry ingredients stays in small pieces, which keeps the crumb tender; if the lard is melted or left in large lumps, the texture becomes uneven and dense.

“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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