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Johnny Cake

A cornmeal cake made with flour, cornmeal, milk, eggs, butter, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By North End Club (Chicago, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 22 ingredients
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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 ↓

Johnny Cake

16 waffles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine one cup white flour, 2 cups cornmeal, and a piece of lard the size of a walnut.

  2. Add one teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 2 teaspoons sugar, and 2 cups milk.

  3. Combine one pint milk, 3 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 3 eggs, and 1 tablespoon butter.

  4. Combine one pint flour, 1 pint milk, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon melted butter, 1 teaspoon baking powder, and 3 eggs.

  5. Beat the egg whites to a froth.

  6. Sift the salt and baking powder with the flour.

  7. Add the milk, melted butter, and yolks of eggs.

  8. Beat hard for several minutes.

  9. Add the whites of eggs.

  10. Bake in hot greased waffle iron.

Make a second batter and bake

  1. Combine one pint flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, and one teaspoon salt sifted together six times.

  2. Make a well in the middle of the flour.

  3. Pour 1 pint milk, beaten yolks of 2 eggs, and a tablespoonful of melted shortening into the well, and mix well.

  4. Add the stiffened whites of two eggs.

  5. Bake on a hot waffle iron.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

833Calories
27 gProtein
26 gFat
120 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Wafflenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By North End Club (Chicago, Ill.). 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. See the original page.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + teatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the batter together as it cooks.
Cornmeal
Gives the cake its coarse, grainy texture and distinctive corn flavor.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the cakes rise and turn light.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and whipped whites trap air for lightness.
Milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour so the batter pours and sets.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps the cakes brown.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whipped whites trap air that lifts the batter. Stirring them in hard or too long deflates that air, leaving the cakes dense and heavy.

“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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