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Cream of Corn Soup

A creamy soup made from corn kernels, butter, flour, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Cream of Corn Soup

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Cream of Corn Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the corn

  1. Score each row of grains on the corn and press out the kernels with the back of a knife.

  2. Place the cobs in a kettle and cover with water.

  3. Bring to a boil and strain.

  4. Add the scraped corn to the strained liquid.

Finish the soup

  1. In a separate bowl, rub together the butter and flour, then stir into the corn mixture.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Add the hot milk, salt, and pepper, and stir well.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Corn
Provides the main flavour and body, with starch from the kernels thickening the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and giving the soup a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the soup, giving it a creamy body as it is stirred into the hot liquid.
Milk
Adds creaminess and mild sweetness, softening the soup's texture and flavour.

The step that matters

Rubbing butter and flour into the corn mixture. Flour clumps if it meets hot liquid unblended. Rubbing it with butter first coats the particles so they disperse evenly and thicken the soup smoothly.

“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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