Name: Soda Bread Op Corn Meal
Ingredients: 1 cup sweet milk; 1 cup sour milk or buttermilk; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 tablespoon butter, suet, or lard; 3 cups cornmeal; 1 cup wheat flour (optional)

Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Soda Bread Op Corn Meal

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

In a bowl, mix sweet milk, sour milk, salt, baking soda, and melted butter.
Gradually add cornmeal and wheat flour, stirring until combined.
Pour the batter into a greased tin.

Bake

Bake for 40 minutes or until golden brown.

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.

Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,418 recipes

Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + wheattop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,002 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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 or buttermilk: Acidity reacts with baking soda to produce carbon dioxide, which lifts the bread.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in the sour milk or buttermilk to make the bread rise without yeast.
Cornmeal: Forms the main structure and gives the bread its coarse, crumbly texture.
Butter, suet, or lard: Adds fat for tenderness and a richer crumb.
Wheat flour: Adds gluten to give the loaf more cohesion and a softer structure.

The step that matters

Combining the batter. Stir only until the cornmeal and flour are just combined. The baking soda starts reacting as soon as it meets the acidic milk, so the batter should go into the tin and into the oven without delay to keep the gas bubbles that give lift.

“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.

Wheat Bread65 recipes

Whole Wheat Bread55 recipes

Barley Wheat Bread6 recipes

Cornbread345 recipes

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Soda Bread Op Corn Meal