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Dessert

Sour-milk Corn Bread

A quick baked cornbread made with sour milk, cornmeal, butter, sugar, eggs, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Sour-milk 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.

Make the batter

  1. In a double boiler, cook cornmeal, sour milk, salt, butter, and sugar for about 10 minutes.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then add beaten eggs and baking soda dissolved in cold water.

  3. Alternatively, mix all dry ingredients, then add sour milk, beaten eggs, and butter.

  4. If using the second method, omit the cold water.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a shallow iron or granite pan.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 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. Milk + buttertop 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. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn meal
Forms the bulk of the crumb and gives the cornbread its characteristic texture and flavor.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and tang, and its acid reacts with baking soda to help the bread rise.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce gas, helping the cornbread rise.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and helps browning on the crust.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding eggs and baking soda. Hot cooked cornmeal would scramble the beaten eggs and could cause the baking soda to react too early, weakening the rise. Cooling first keeps the eggs smooth and lets the leavening work in the oven.

“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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