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Custard Corn Cake

A baked custard corn cake made with sweet milk, cornmeal, wheat flour, butter, cream, eggs, sugar, baking soda, salt, and sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Custard 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

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

  2. In a bowl, mix sweet milk, cornmeal, wheat flour, baking soda, salt, and sugar.

  3. Melt the butter in a deep pan, coating the sides well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the batter into the pan without stirring.

  2. Add the cream on top of the batter.

  3. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until a custard layer forms on top.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the structure of the cake.
Cornmeal
Gives the cake its coarse, grainy texture and corn flavor.
Wheat flour
Provides structure so the batter holds together while baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas and help the cake rise.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, forming the custard layer on top.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Pour the batter without stirring. Keeping the cream on top of the batter, undisturbed, lets it settle into a distinct custard layer as it bakes. Stirring mixes the layers together and the custard does not form.

“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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