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Bread

Buttermilk Corn Bread

A loaf of cornmeal and flour bread baked with buttermilk, lard, molasses, eggs, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Buttermilk Corn Bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Scald 1 pound of cornmeal with 1 pint of boiling water.

  2. Add the lard and dissolve the baking soda in some water.

  3. Thin the scalded cornmeal with the buttermilk.

  4. Add the eggs and flour, mixing to form a slack dough.

  5. Shape the dough into loaves and place in pans.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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 + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Molasses + buttermilktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Buttermilk + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,986 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Forms the main body of the bread and gives its corn flavor and crumb.
White flour
Adds structure so the slack dough holds its shape while baking.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the crumb as it bakes.
Buttermilk
Adds acidity and moisture, and reacts with the baking soda to help the bread rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in buttermilk to produce gas that lifts the loaves.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a moist texture.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda fully before mixing. Baking soda must be evenly dissolved so it reacts with the buttermilk's acid throughout the dough. Undissolved pockets can cause uneven rising and bitter spots.

“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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