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Old Virginia Batter Bread

A batter bread made with cornmeal, milk, eggs, sugar, salt, and butter or lard, baked at 375°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Old Virginia Batter Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Stir cornmeal into scalded milk.

  2. Cook until it thickens.

  3. Add salt and sugar.

  4. Cool the mixture.

  5. Beat the egg yolks until light.

  6. Fold the yolks into the mixture.

  7. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  8. Gently fold the whites into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Melt butter or lard in a baking pan.

  2. Pour the mixture into the pan.

  3. Bake for 45 minutes at 375°F (190°C).

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. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Cornmeal
Forms the thick body of the batter and sets into a tender crumb as it cooks.
Eggs
Whites beaten to stiff peaks lighten the batter and help it rise; yolks add richness and structure.
Milk
Scalded milk thickens with the cornmeal and provides moisture throughout the bread.
Butter or lard
Fat that adds richness and helps the crust brown and release from the pan.

The step that matters

Gently fold the whites into the mixture.. Stiff egg whites trap air that gives the bread its lift. Stirring or deflating them vigorously knocks out that air, leaving a dense result.

“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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