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Dessert

Pone.

A sour milk bread made with cornmeal, flour, baking soda, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pone.

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a large bowl, combine the cornmeal, sour milk, melted butter, salt, and egg yolks.

  3. Sift in the flour and baking soda, then mix thoroughly.

  4. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a well‑buttered shallow pan.

  2. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.

  3. Cut into square pieces to serve.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Milk + flourtop 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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to produce rising and a tangy flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acid to release gas, lifting the batter.
Eggs
Whipped whites add air and structure, while yolks enrich texture and bind the batter.
Cornmeal
Forms the bulk of the batter, giving the bread its crumb and characteristic texture.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and helps the bread brown.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air that lifts the batter. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring hard deflates it and leaves a denser loaf.

“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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