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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, mix the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt.
In another bowl, beat the eggs and then add the milk and melted butter.
Mix and bake
Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients and mix until smooth.
Pour the batter into a greased baking dish and bake for 30-40 minutes or 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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Cornmeal
- Provides the coarse, grainy structure and the characteristic texture of the cake.
- Flour
- Gives the batter structure so the cake holds its shape as it bakes.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and hydrates the dry ingredients into a smooth batter.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda, helping the cake rise.
The step that matters
Combine the wet and dry ingredients until smooth. Mixing just until smooth keeps the batter tender. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which can make the cake tough, while the leavening gas needs to be trapped before baking.
“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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