Why it works: Corn and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 465 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓
Corx Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Scald the corn meal.
In a bowl, beat together the corn meal, wheat flour, eggs, salt, baking soda, and buttermilk until light.
Cook
Cook on a griddle until golden brown.
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.
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Corn + wheattop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together465 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,721 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,373 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and egg 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
- Corn meal
- Forms the main body of the cakes and gives them their characteristic grainy texture.
- Wheat flour
- Adds structure so the batter holds together while cooking.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add richness and structure to the cakes.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidity of buttermilk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
- Buttermilk
- Adds moisture and acidity, which activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.
The step that matters
Cook on a griddle until golden brown. Browning depends on steady heat and the batter's sugars and proteins reacting at the surface. Too hot burns the outside before the centre sets; too cool leaves the cakes pale and doughy.
“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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