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Bread

Boiled Corn-bread

A cornmeal bread boiled and then baked, made with cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, shortening, and milk or buttermilk.

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

Boiled Corn-bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift together salt, baking soda, sugar, cornmeal, and flour twice.

  2. Stir melted shortening into the milk or buttermilk.

  3. Pour the mixture over the dry ingredients.

  4. Beat the mixture for five minutes until well combined.

  5. Pour the batter into a well-greased mold with a tight-fitting lid.

Boil and dry

  1. Place the mold in a pot of hot water, ensuring it doesn't float.

  2. Boil steadily for two hours.

  3. Remove the lid.

  4. Place the mold in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for ten minutes to dry.

Serve

  1. Turn out the bread.

  2. Heat until hot before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 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

Cornmeal
Forms the main body of the bread and gives it its coarse, crumbly texture.
All-purpose flour
Adds structure so the steamed batter holds together after boiling.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic milk or buttermilk to produce gas that lightens the bread.
Milk or buttermilk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and cornmeal into a batter.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a richer mouthfeel.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown lightly.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling steadily around the sealed mold. The bread cooks by steam, so the water must stay at a steady boil and must not rise into the mold. Too little heat or water entering the mold leaves the bread dense or soggy.

“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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