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Boiled Corn Bread

A boiled bread made from cornmeal, shortening, flour, molasses, sweet milk, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Corn Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine cornmeal, shortening, flour, molasses, sweet milk, baking soda, and salt. Mix until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a covered gallon tin pail.

Boil

  1. Place the pail in boiling water and boil for 4 hours. Ensure the water remains boiling throughout the cooking time.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + milktop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Cornmeal
Forms the main body of the bread and gives it its corn flavor and crumb.
Shortening
Adds fat for a tender texture and moist crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and a rich flavor.
Sweet milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the cornmeal into a batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the bread rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling throughout the cooking time. Boiling water keeps the sealed pail at a steady high heat so the batter cooks through evenly. If the water drops below a boil, the bread cooks more slowly and can turn out dense and undercooked in the center.

“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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