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Virginia Spoon Corn Bread

A cornbread made with hominy, eggs, milk, butter, lard, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt, baked in a pudding dish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Virginia Spoon Corn Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the hot hominy with lard and salt.

  3. Sift the cornmeal with baking powder and add it alternately with the milk to the hominy mixture; mix well.

  4. Beat the eggs until very light, then add them to the mixture and beat vigorously.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a well-buttered pudding dish.

  2. Bake for 45 minutes.

  3. Serve directly from the baking dish with a spoon.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten until light, they add lift and structure to the spoon-style batter.
Cornmeal
Forms the bulk of the batter and gives the cornbread its body and texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cornbread rise in the oven.
Milk
Hydrates the cornmeal and adds moisture so the batter pours and bakes tender.
Hominy
Adds moisture and a soft, tender texture to the batter.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the cornbread moist and tender.

The step that matters

Beat the eggs until very light. Beating eggs incorporates air, which expands in the oven and helps the spoon cornbread rise and stay light. Adding them gently but thoroughly keeps the batter evenly aerated.

“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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