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Dessert

Old-fashioned Sweetened Johnny Cake

A sweetened cornmeal cake made with sour milk, flour, sugar, baking soda, shortening, egg, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Old-fashioned Sweetened Johnny Cake

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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine sour milk, flour, sugar, baking soda, shortening, salt, and egg.

  2. Stir in cornmeal until the mixture is as thick as loaf cake.

  3. Pour the batter into a square baking tin.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until golden brown.

  2. Serve hot with plenty of butter.

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 + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour 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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise and gives a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps the crust brown.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and keeps it moist.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness.
Cornmeal
Adds a coarser texture and grainy body to the batter.

The step that matters

Stir in cornmeal until the mixture is as thick as loaf cake. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes the cake tough. Stir just until combined, and check that the batter has the thick, spoonable consistency the recipe describes so the cake bakes evenly.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, sugar, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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