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 ↓
Corn Pone
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare the dough
In a bowl, combine the corn meal, salt, and melted lard.
Add enough scalded milk and boiling water to form a moldable mixture.
Work the mixture with your hands until well combined.
Shape and bake
Shape the mixture into oblong cakes, about 6 inches long, 3 inches wide, and 1 inch thick.
Place the cakes on a well-greased baking sheet.
Brush the tops with melted butter or milk.
Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 25 minutes.
Serve
Once baked, split each cake, add butter, and top with crispy bacon slices.
Serve immediately.
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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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- White corn meal
- Forms the bulk of the cakes and gives them their corn flavor and crumbly structure.
- Melted lard
- Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and keeps the cakes from drying out.
- Scalded milk and boiling water
- Hydrates the corn meal so it becomes a moldable dough and softens the starch.
- Melted butter
- Adds richness and promotes browning on the tops of the cakes.
The step that matters
Adding the scalded milk and boiling water. Corn meal needs hot liquid to hydrate its starch. Too little liquid leaves the dough crumbly and hard to shape, while cold liquid does not gelatinize the starch and yields a gritty texture.
“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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