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Dessert

Cream Johnnycake

A baked cornmeal cake made with sour cream, eggs, sugar, baking soda, salt, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cream Johnnycake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make and bake the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the sour cream, cornmeal, eggs, sugar, baking soda, salt, and white flour until well combined.

  2. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.

  3. Bake for 20 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.

  1. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 cream
Adds moisture and tang, keeping the crumb tender and rich.
Cornmeal
Provides the main body and the coarse, grainy texture of the johnnycake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour cream's acidity to lift the batter and help it rise.
White flour
Adds gluten-forming structure that holds the batter together and supports the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and promotes browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Baking soda reacts with the sour cream's acid, so the batter should go into the oven promptly once mixed to keep the rise. Stop at golden brown, since cornmeal-heavy batters dry out if overbaked.

“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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