Name: Corn Batter Bread
Ingredients: 6 tablespoons flour; 6 tablespoons cornmeal; ¼ teaspoon salt; 4 eggs; 1 cup milk; Optional: yeast powder or baking soda

Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Corn Batter Bread

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 the batter

Sift together the flour and cornmeal with salt.
In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the milk to create a batter.
Stir the sifted flour and cornmeal into the egg and milk mixture until smooth.
If using yeast powder, sift it with the flour; if using baking soda, mix it into the milk.

Bake

Pour the batter into small tins and bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Flour: Provides the main structure that holds the cornbread together.
Cornmeal: Gives the bread its grainy texture and corn flavour.
Milk: Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, pourable batter.
Baking soda: Optional; reacts with acid to help the cornbread rise and brown.

“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.