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Southern Corn Bread

A quick, light batter cornbread made with sour milk, eggs, butter, molasses, baking soda, salt, and cornmeal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Southern Corn 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 the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs, molasses, and melted butter together until well combined.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk and stir it into the egg mixture.

  4. Gradually add cornmeal until you achieve a light batter consistency.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased pan, about 1½ inches thick.

  2. Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden 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).

  4. Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,243 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Butter + molassestop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,123 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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Eggs
They bind the batter and add structure as it sets in the oven.
Baking soda
It reacts with the acid in sour milk to leaven the cornbread.
Cornmeal
It forms the main body and structure of the cornbread.
Molasses
It adds sweetness, depth of flavor, and moisture that aids browning.
Melted butter or lard
It adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the crumb.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk before mixing. Baking soda needs an acid to react and produce gas. Dissolving it fully in the acidic sour milk and mixing it in promptly lets the gas form in the batter, so the cornbread rises evenly rather than staying dense or leaving pockets of soda.

“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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