Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓
Baked Corn
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 corn
Cut each ear of corn down the middle and scrape the cob well.
Add salt, pepper, and sugar to the corn.
Make the custard
Beat the egg into the cream and mix in the flour.
Combine the egg mixture with the corn.
Bake and serve
Pour the mixture into a baking pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.
Serve in the same pan.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,324 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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
- Corn
- Forms the main body of the dish and provides its sweet, fresh flavor.
- Egg
- Sets during baking to bind the mixture into a spoonable, sliceable custard.
- Cream
- Adds richness and moisture, keeping the baked corn tender rather than dry.
- Flour
- Thickens the egg and cream mixture so it holds together after baking.
The step that matters
Combine the egg mixture with the corn. Egg proteins set when heated, so the custard needs to be evenly mixed through the corn before baking. Uneven mixing leaves pockets of loose liquid or overly firm patches in the finished dish.
“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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