Skip to main content
Dessert

Johnny Cake

A simple cornmeal cake baked slowly in the oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Johnny Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make and bake

  1. In a bowl, combine the Indian meal, sugar, eggs, lard or butter, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

  2. Add enough sweet milk or buttermilk to create a batter.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.

  4. Bake for at least 5 hours.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Indian meal
Forms the main body of the cake, giving it structure as the batter sets.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic components to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter, activating the baking soda and helping the cake rise.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during the long bake.
Lard or butter
Adds fat, contributing tenderness and moisture to the crumb.

The step that matters

Bake for at least 5 hours. Cornmeal batters need a long, slow bake so the starch gelatinizes and the eggs set through to the centre. Pulling it early can leave a wet, gummy interior.

“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.

More johnny cake recipes

Apple 5Corn 5 See all 200 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes