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Dessert

Johnny Cake

A simple batter of sour milk, butter, sugar, egg, flour, cornmeal, and baking soda baked into a cake.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the sour milk, softened butter, sugar, egg, and salt.

  2. Gradually add the flour and enough cornmeal to thicken the batter.

  3. Stir in the baking soda until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish and bake for at least 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.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Sour milk
Provides acidity that reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the batter as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acidity to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Cornmeal
Thickens the batter and adds a coarse, grainy texture.

The step that matters

Stir in the baking soda until well combined. Baking soda reacts with the acid in sour milk to release gas that leavens the batter. Once it is added, the batter should be baked promptly, and it must be mixed evenly so the rise is uniform and no pockets of soda remain.

“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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