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Dessert

Johnny-cake, No. 3

A sweet, lightly leavened cake made with Indian meal, flour, butter, sugar, eggs, milk, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Johnny-cake, No. 3

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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Beat the egg white separately.

  3. Beat the egg yolk separately.

  4. Mix the yolk with the butter and sugar.

  5. Sift the flour with the baking powder.

  6. Add the sifted flour and baking powder to the mixture.

  7. Add part of the milk.

  8. Sift the Indian meal with the salt and add it to the mixture.

  9. Mix thoroughly.

  10. Stir in the remaining milk and the beaten egg white.

Bake

  1. Bake in a buttered gingerbread pan 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Egg
Yolk enriches the batter and egg white, beaten separately and folded in, adds lift and a lighter crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cake to rise and become light.
Indian meal
Cornmeal provides the characteristic grainy texture and corn flavour of the cake.
Flour
Provides structure so the batter holds together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness, tenderness and flavour.
Milk
Hydrates the dry ingredients to form a pourable batter and keeps the crumb moist.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg white. Beaten egg white holds air bubbles that help the cake rise. Stirring it in too vigorously knocks out that air, leaving a denser cake, so it should be stirred in gently and only until combined.

“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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