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Dessert

Corn Bread-steamed

A steamed corn bread made with buttermilk, lard, eggs, flour, molasses, baking soda, and cornmeal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Corn Bread-steamed

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.

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the buttermilk, lard, eggs, flour, molasses, and baking soda.

  2. Add cornmeal gradually until the batter is slightly thicker than for Johnny cake.

Steam and bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased steaming dish.

  2. Steam for 1 hour.

  3. After steaming, bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 1 hour.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Buttermilk + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Buttermilk + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,986 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Buttermilk
Provides acidity that reacts with the baking soda and adds moisture and tang.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to release gas, helping the bread rise.
Cornmeal
Forms the body of the bread, giving it its grainy structure and texture.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the crumb.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and a moist, rich texture.

The step that matters

Add cornmeal gradually. Cornmeal absorbs liquid slowly, so adding it gradually lets you judge the batter's thickness. Too much cornmeal makes a dense, dry result, while too little leaves the batter thin and loose.

“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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