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Dessert

Old Fashioned Corn Pone

A yeast‑free cornbread made with cornmeal, flour, molasses, and salt, baked for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,165 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Old Fashioned Corn Pone

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Scald 1 teacup of corn meal in 1 pint of boiling water.

  2. Add cold water to make it lukewarm, then mix in 2 teacups of corn meal and 1 tablespoon of salt.

  3. Beat the mixture briskly and let it stand overnight in a warm place.

  4. The next day, add 1 teacup of flour and 1 tablespoon of molasses.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the batter into a deep, well-greased vessel and let it rise for 1 hour.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 2 to 3 hours, using hot stones on top.

  3. When done, turn upside down and let cool to remove easily.

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. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Corn + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together644 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn meal
Forms the bulk of the bread, giving it its main structure and coarse, grainy texture.
Flour
Adds some wheat gluten to help the batter hold its shape and rise.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a darker color as it browns during baking.

The step that matters

Overnight standing of the batter. Letting the scalded cornmeal batter stand in a warm place allows the meal to hydrate and begin fermenting, which affects flavor and rise. Too cold or too short a rest leaves the texture dense.

“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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