Name: Cornmeal Rusk
Ingredients: 6 cups cornmeal; 4 cups all-purpose flour; 2 cups molasses; 2 teaspoons baking soda

Why it works: Flour and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,429 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cornmeal Rusk

Ingredients

6 cups cornmeal
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups molasses
2 teaspoons baking soda

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 the dough

In a large bowl, mix the cornmeal, flour, molasses, and baking soda until well combined.
Knead the mixture into a dough.
Divide the dough into 2 equal cakes.

Bake

Bake the cakes in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.

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.

Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,429 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal: Provides the coarse, gritty structure that gives the rusk its characteristic crumb.
All-purpose flour: Adds gluten-forming protein so the dough holds together when kneaded and baked.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, moisture, and deep colour through browning during baking.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidity in molasses to produce gas, helping the rusk rise and lighten.

“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.