Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Old Fashioned 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.
Make the batter
Sift the cornmeal and beat the egg until very light.
Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk.
Mix the flour with the cornmeal and sift it in lightly.
Add the egg and salt to the mixture.
Bake and serve
Pour two small spoonfuls of the thin batter into a cake pan.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden; serve warm.
Ensure the cakes are no thicker than ⅛ inch.
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.
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Egg
- Binds the batter and, when beaten light, adds air that helps the cakes rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to release gas that lifts the batter.
- Sour milk
- Its acidity activates the baking soda and keeps the crumb tender.
- Cornmeal
- Forms the bulk of the cake and gives it its coarse, grainy texture.
- Flour
- Adds some gluten-based structure to help hold the cornmeal together.
The step that matters
Keep the cakes no thicker than ⅛ inch. Thin cakes let heat reach the centre quickly so they bake through and turn golden. Thicker cornmeal cakes can stay gummy or raw inside while the outside browns.
“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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