Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
Cornmeal Bread
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, rub the butter into the cornmeal until well combined.
Make the batter
Add the eggs and milk to the mixture, stirring to form a batter.
Mix in the yeast and let the batter rise in a warm place for 1 hour.
Bake
Grease small pans with butter and pour the batter into them.
Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Butter
- Coats the cornmeal and adds richness, tenderness and flavour.
- Cornmeal
- Forms the main body and structure of the bread.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help set the crumb as it bakes.
- Milk
- Hydrates the cornmeal and adds moisture to the batter.
- Yeast
- Produces gas during the rise, lightening the batter.
The step that matters
Letting the batter rise with the yeast. Yeast works slowly and needs warmth and time to produce gas. An underproved batter bakes dense, while an overproved one can collapse or turn sour.
“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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