Name: Potato Corn Bread
Ingredients: 1 quart fine cornmeal; 1 pint milk; ½ lb sweet potatoes; 1 lb butter; 1 lb brown sugar; 8 eggs

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 ↓

Potato Corn Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Boil and mash the sweet potatoes until smooth.
In a bowl, beat the eggs and stir them into the butter.

Make the batter

Add the milk and mix well.
Gradually add the cornmeal and beat the mixture until combined.

Bake

Pour the batter into a pan and bake.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + sweet potatotop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together596 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Sweet potato + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,151 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Cornmeal: Forms the main body of the bread and gives it its coarse, crumbly texture.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavour.
Milk: Hydrates the cornmeal and adds moisture to the batter.
Sweet potatoes: Add moisture, a soft crumb, and natural sweetness.

The step that matters

Mash the sweet potatoes until smooth. Lumps of cooked sweet potato will not blend into the batter and can leave pockets of uneven texture in the baked bread. Fully smooth purée mixes evenly with the eggs, butter and milk, so the crumb bakes consistently.