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Corn Dodgers

Corn Dodgers are a cornmeal cake baked with milk, butter, egg yolk, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Corn Dodgers

12 ovals
Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the cornmeal mixture

  1. Heat 1 pint of milk with 3/4 teaspoon coarse sea salt in a saucepan until it boils.

  2. Slowly sprinkle in 1 pound of cornmeal while stirring briskly.

  3. Let it boil for 6 minutes, stirring occasionally from the bottom.

  4. Mix in 1 ounce butter, 1 egg yolk, and a pinch grated nutmeg, then transfer the mixture to a dish to cool.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide the mixture into 12 equal parts and shape them into ovals.

  2. Place the ovals in a buttered pan, baste with a little butter, and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 20 minutes.

Serve

  1. Remove from the oven, split each oval open, spread butter inside, and serve on a hot dish in a napkin.

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. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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
Forms the thick body of the dough, giving the dodgers their starchy, sturdy texture.
Milk
Cooked with the cornmeal, it hydrates the starch so the mixture thickens into a firm dough.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the dough so the ovals hold their shape.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and moisture, and browns lightly on the baked ovals.

The step that matters

Stirring in the cornmeal. Cornmeal added to boiling milk must be sprinkled slowly and stirred briskly, otherwise it clumps and forms lumps that do not hydrate evenly.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, egg):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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