Skip to main content
Bread

Buttermilk Corn Bread

A quick baked bread made with cornmeal, buttermilk, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Buttermilk Corn Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the cornmeal, baking soda, egg, flour, and salt.

  2. Add buttermilk gradually until you achieve a soft batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Melt the lard in a pan until very hot.

  2. Pour the batter into the hot pan.

  3. Bake until the bread is brown and firm, then serve hot.

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 + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + buttermilktop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,986 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 grainy texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that helps the bread rise.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Buttermilk
Moistens the batter and its acidity activates the baking soda for lift.
Lard
Fat that heats in the pan to help the crust brown and release the bread.

The step that matters

Melting the lard until very hot before adding the batter. Pouring batter into a very hot fat starts the crust cooking immediately, which browns the outside and helps prevent sticking. A cool pan lets the batter soak up fat and turn greasy and pale.

“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.

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes