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Bread

New Orleans Corn Bread, Yeast-raised

A yeast-raised corn bread made with cornmeal, patent flour, lard, molasses, and water or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

New Orleans Corn Bread, Yeast-raised

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 sponge

  1. In a bowl, combine 1 pint of warm water, molasses, and yeast with a portion of the flour to create a sponge. Let it sit until bubbly.

Prepare the mush

  1. Scald the cornmeal with 1 pint of boiling water to make a mush. Mix in the lard and salt, then let it cool.

Make and bake the bread

  1. Once the sponge is ready, add the mush and 1 pint of milk or water to it. Mix to form a medium dough.

  2. Cover the dough and let it rise until doubled in size. Punch it down and shape it into loaves.

  3. Place the loaves in pans and let them rise again until slightly puffy.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

White cornmeal
Scalded into a mush, it adds body, moisture and a tender, crumbly texture.
Patent flour
Its gluten forms the dough's structure, trapping gas so the loaves rise and hold their shape.
Yeast
Ferments the sponge, producing gas that makes the dough rise.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes to a soft texture.
Molasses
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and depth of flavor, helping browning.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until doubled. Yeast needs enough time to produce gas and develop the gluten network. Underproofed dough bakes dense, while overproofed dough may collapse or lose its 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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