Why it works: Wheat and corn 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 ↓
Mrs. B.'s Corn Bread
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 the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, combine sour milk, eggs, lard or butter, sugar, and salt.
Add a handful of wheat flour and enough sifted corn meal to create a batter that is not too stiff.
Stir in the baking soda until thoroughly mixed.
Bake
Pour the batter into a long dripping pan and bake 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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Wheat + corntop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together465 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,418 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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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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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,373 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sour milk
- Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas that lightens the batter.
- Eggs
- They add structure and help bind the batter as it sets.
- Baking soda
- It reacts with the acidic sour milk to make the cornbread rise.
- Corn meal
- It forms the main body of the bread, giving its characteristic grainy texture.
- Lard or butter
- Fat adds tenderness and moisture to the crumb.
The step that matters
Stir in the baking soda until thoroughly mixed. Baking soda reacts with the acid in sour milk as soon as it is wet. Mixing it evenly distributes the gas-producing reaction so the cornbread rises uniformly rather than in pockets, and the batter should be baked without long delay.
“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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