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 Wafers
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make and bake
In a bowl, mix the cornmeal, milk, water, butter, and salt until smooth.
Pour the mixture onto a baking sheet.
Bake until light brown.
Serve
Serve warm.
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).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cornmeal
- Forms the main structure and body of the wafer as it sets.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and richness, and helps browning through milk sugars.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor.
The step that matters
Bake until light brown. Cornmeal wafers can dry out or turn bitter if overbaked, while underbaking leaves them soft and pale. Watching for light browning signals that starches have set and the surface has toasted.
“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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