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Melmore Soft Corn Bread

A moist corn bread made with cornmeal, rice, eggs, milk, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Melmore Soft Corn Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Sift together the cornmeal and salt.

  2. Pour the boiling water over the mixture and beat until smooth.

  3. Add more boiling water if necessary to achieve a smooth paste.

  4. Beat in the melted lard and butter, then let it cool.

  5. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs until light.

  6. Gradually add the eggs, rice, and milk to the cornmeal mixture while beating steadily.

  7. Sift in the baking powder and stir just enough to combine.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a well‑greased pan and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 45 minutes.

  2. Cover the top after the first 15 minutes to prevent a hard crust.

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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  3. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

White cornmeal
Forms the main body of the bread and gives its structure.
Cold boiled rice
Adds moisture and softness to the crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add richness and structure as they set.
Baking powder
Releases gas to lift the batter so the bread rises and stays light.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps the batter flow and bake evenly.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and keeps it soft.

The step that matters

Cover the top after the first 15 minutes. Uncovered, the surface dries and hardens quickly in the oven's heat. Covering it partway through slows browning so the crust stays tender while the interior finishes cooking.

“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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