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Bread

Spoon Bread

A simple bread made with sweet milk, cornmeal, egg, butter, and salt, baked until light brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Spoon Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Place the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Mix the cornmeal with enough water to form a stiff dough.

Make the custard

  1. Stir the cornmeal mixture into the hot milk and cook until thick.

  2. While hot, beat in the egg and butter.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) until light 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. 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

Cornmeal
Forms the thick base that gives spoon bread its soft, spoonable body.
Egg
Adds structure and helps the bread set and rise while baking.
Milk
Provides moisture and cooks into the thick mixture that bakes up tender.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Cook the cornmeal until thick before adding the egg. Cornmeal must thicken fully in the hot milk so starch gelatinizes and holds the mixture together. Beating the egg into a hot base, rather than a cold one, helps it blend smoothly without scrambling.

“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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