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Bread

Famous Virginia Spoon Bread

A cornmeal bread baked in a pan, served hot with a spoon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Famous Virginia Spoon Bread

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.

Make the batter

  1. Thin the scalded cornmeal to a cake batter consistency with the buttermilk.

  2. Melt the butter in the baking pan and add it to the mixture along with salt.

  3. Stir well, pour into the hot pan, and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until well browned and serve hot from the pan with a spoon.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + buttermilktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Egg + buttermilktop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,986 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Forms the body of the bread, thickening into a soft, spoonable crumb when scalded and baked.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set into a light, custardy structure as it bakes.
Buttermilk
Moistens the batter and its acidity reacts with the baking soda to aid rising.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the crust brown in the hot pan.

The step that matters

Pour into the hot pan. Pouring the batter into a preheated pan starts the crust cooking immediately, giving browning and a crisp edge. A cold pan produces a pale, dense bottom.

“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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