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 ↓
Corn Cake
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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Mix the dry ingredients (flour, corn meal, sugar, salt, cream of tartar, and baking soda) thoroughly in a bowl.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg and add the milk.
Melt the butter and add it to the milk and egg mixture.
Make and bake
Combine the wet and dry ingredients and beat well.
Pour the batter into greased muffin pans or a shallow pan.
Bake for about 20 minutes until golden brown.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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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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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
- Egg
- Binds the batter and adds structure and richness to the crumb.
- Butter or dripping
- Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavour.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so it reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
- Fine yellow corn meal
- Gives the cake its corn flavour and a slightly coarse, crumbly texture.
The step that matters
Combining the wet and dry ingredients. Beat just until combined. Once flour is mixed with liquid, gluten begins to form, and overbeating makes the cake tough. The baking soda and cream of tartar also start reacting as soon as they meet liquid, so the batter should go into the oven promptly.
“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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