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Bread

Steamed Corn Bread

A steamed cornbread made with cornmeal, flour, butter, sour milk, molasses, salt, baking soda, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Steamed Corn 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.

Mix the batter

  1. Mix the baking soda with a little of the sour milk until smooth.

  2. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients and beat until thoroughly mixed.

  3. Butter a 2‑quart basin and pour in the batter.

Steam and bake

  1. Steam the batter for 2½ hours.

  2. After steaming, bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  3. Serve warm.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 bulk of the bread and gives it its coarse, crumbly texture.
Flour
Adds structure so the batter holds together after steaming.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the bread rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture to the crumb.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds richness and structure.

The step that matters

Mixing the baking soda into the sour milk first. Baking soda only leavens when it meets an acid. Dissolving it smoothly in part of the sour milk before combining spreads it evenly, so the bread rises uniformly rather than in pockets.

“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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