Name: Wheat and Corn Bread No. 1
Ingredients: 2 pounds (about 8 cups) sifted bread flour; ½ pound (1 cup) cornmeal; 2 cakes of compressed yeast; 3 tablespoons sugar; 1½ tablespoons coarse sea salt; About 1 quart (4 cups) of liquid (water, milk, or equal parts of milk and water); 3 tablespoons shortening (optional)

Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Wheat and Corn Bread No. 1

Ingredients

2 pounds (about 8 cups) sifted bread flour
½ pound (1 cup) cornmeal
2 cakes of compressed yeast
3 tablespoons sugar
1½ tablespoons coarse sea salt
About 1 quart (4 cups) of liquid (water, milk, or equal parts of milk and water)
3 tablespoons shortening (optional)

Directions

If using milk, scald it and let it cool until lukewarm.
Make a sponge with the bread flour, yeast, salt, sugar, and lukewarm liquid.
Cover the sponge and set it in a warm place to rise.

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.

Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Bread + flourtop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together10,383 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Cornbread345 recipes

Bread Pudding336 recipes

Nut Bread109 recipes

Wheat Bread65 recipes

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Wheat and Corn Bread No. 1