Why it works: Butter and milk 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
Mix the batter
Rub the butter into the cornmeal.
Mix in the baking soda.
Add the sour milk, sugar, and salt.
Stir until well combined.
Bake
Pour the mixture into Patty Pans.
Bake 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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Cornmeal
- Forms the bulk of the cake and gives it its coarse, grainy texture.
- Sour milk
- Provides moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that leavens the cake.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and tenderness and helps the crumb brown.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
The step that matters
Mix in the baking soda. Baking soda needs an acid, such as the sour milk, to react and release gas. If it sits in dry ingredients without enough liquid to mix in evenly, pockets of soda can taste bitter and the cake may rise unevenly.
“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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