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 ↓
Spider Corn Bread
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
Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, mix the corn meal, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.
In another bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the sour milk and melted butter.
Combine the wet and dry ingredients until just mixed.
Grease an iron skillet with butter and heat it on the stove.
Bake and serve
Pour the batter into the hot skillet and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for about 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Butter + corntop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (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 gritty, toothy structure of the cornbread.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help set the crumb as it bakes.
- Sour milk
- Adds moisture and tang, and reacts with the leavening to lift the batter.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter to make the cornbread rise and turn light.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas for rising and aids browning.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, and helps the crust brown and release from the skillet.
The step that matters
Heating the greased skillet before pouring in the batter. A hot pan starts setting the batter's bottom and edges right away, giving a crisp, browned crust and helping the cornbread release cleanly instead of sticking.
“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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