Name: Company Johnny Cake
Ingredients: 3 cups Indian meal; 3 cups white flour; 1 cup sugar; ¼ cup washed butter; 1 tablespoon lard; 3 eggs; 2 cups milk (or enough to make a stiff batter); 4 teaspoons baking powder

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 ↓

Company Johnny Cake

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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

In a large bowl, combine the Indian meal, white flour, sugar, washed butter, lard, eggs, and milk, and mix until you achieve a stiff batter.
Stir in the baking powder.
Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.

Bake

Bake for 30 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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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).
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

Indian meal: Provides the coarse, grainy body and characteristic corn flavour of the cake.
White flour: Builds structure so the batter sets firm rather than crumbling.
Eggs: Bind the batter and help it set as it bakes.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and turns light.
Milk: Hydrates the flour and meal to form a stiff batter and adds moisture.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.

The step that matters

Stir in the baking powder. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it meets liquid, so the batter should go into the pan and into the oven promptly. Waiting lets the bubbles escape and leaves the cake flatter.

“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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Company Johnny Cake