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Dessert

Virginia Pone

A cornmeal cake baked with butter, eggs, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Virginia Pone

Why it works: Corn and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,345 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Virginia Pone

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine corn meal, butter, and salt.

  2. Pour in a little hot water, then add enough cold water to prevent scalding the eggs.

  3. Beat the eggs well and add to the mixture.

  4. Mix everything together for five minutes.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into iron-gem pans.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Corn + brazil nuttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Butter + brazil nuttop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together61 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Corn + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Corn meal
Forms the main body of the bread, giving it its grainy structure and texture.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Adding the cold water to the hot water. Hot water partly cooks the corn meal, and the cold water cools the mixture enough that it will not scald the beaten eggs when they are added. Scalded eggs will not blend smoothly into the batter.

Swap the brazil nut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, butter, egg):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Lima beansfits better
  3. Pecansfits better
  4. Brazil nutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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