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Bread

Corn-meal Light Bread

A light bread made with cornmeal mush, flour, sugar, yeast, and optional shortening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,165 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Corn-meal Light 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 the mush

  1. Cook ¾ cup dry corn meal with 1½ cups water for 10 minutes to 1 hour in a double boiler or a vessel over boiling water to make cornmeal mush.

  2. Cool the cornmeal mush until lukewarm.

Make and rise the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine the lukewarm cornmeal mush, 4 tablespoons lukewarm water, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 to 4 cups sifted flour, 4 tablespoons sugar, yeast, and shortening.

  2. Mix until well combined, then knead the dough until smooth.

  3. Let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in size.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into a loaf and place it in a greased pan.

  2. Let the loaf rise again until it has risen above the rim of the pan.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 30–40 minutes or 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. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 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. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the loaf its structure and chew.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become airy.
Corn meal mush
Adds moisture and corn flavor, and softens the crumb.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and helps the crust brown in the oven.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and softens texture.

The step that matters

Letting the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce enough gas for a light loaf. Underproofed dough bakes dense, while overproofed dough can collapse and lose structure.

“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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