Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Plain Johnny-cake
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.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine sour milk or buttermilk with baking soda or pearl-ash until it froths.
Gradually mix in cornmeal until the mixture thickens.
Add salt and stir to combine.
Bake and serve
Pour the batter into a flat pan and bake until golden brown.
Cut into pieces and serve hot with butter or molasses.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sour milk or buttermilk
- Its acidity reacts with the alkali to create bubbles and gives a tangy flavour.
- Baking soda or pearl-ash
- Reacts with the acid in the milk to release gas, helping the bread rise and lighten.
- Cornmeal
- Forms the bulk of the bread, giving it its structure and coarse, sturdy texture.
The step that matters
Combining the milk with baking soda until it froths. The froth shows the acid and alkali are reacting and releasing carbon dioxide. Adding the cornmeal before this reaction is well underway can leave the batter less light once baked.
“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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