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 ↓
Cokn Bread
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 your oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make the dough
In a large bowl, mix the Indian meal and flour together.
Sift the cream of tartar into the flour mixture.
In another bowl, combine the milk, eggs, baking soda, lard, and salt.
Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until smooth.
Shape and bake
Roll out the dough to ½ inch thick and cut into round cakes.
Place the cakes on a baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden.
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 + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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).
Flour and butter 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
- Indian meal
- Provides the cornmeal body and coarse texture that gives the bread its character.
- All-purpose flour
- Supplies gluten-forming structure so the cakes hold their shape when rolled and cut.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, binding the dough and helping it set in the oven.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar and milk to produce gas that lifts the cakes.
- Cream of tartar
- Acts as an acid that works with the baking soda to leaven the dough and add tang.
- Lard
- Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes to browning on the surface.
The step that matters
Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until smooth. Baking soda and cream of tartar start producing gas as soon as they are wet, so the dough should be mixed just until combined and shaped promptly. Overworking it develops gluten and can make the cakes dense and tough.
“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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