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Bread

New-england Corn-bread

A quick baked cornbread made with cornmeal, flour, butter, eggs, and milk.

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

New-england Corn-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.

Mix the batter

  1. Sift together cornmeal, flour, salt, and baking powder.

  2. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and flour.

  3. Beat in eggs for 2 minutes, then add milk.

  4. Combine all mixtures and pour into a well-buttered iron pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes or until browned.

  2. Serve hot.

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. 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

Cornmeal
Provides the characteristic grainy texture and corn flavor of the cornbread.
All-purpose flour
Gives the crumb structure and holds the cornbread together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor, and helps the crust brown.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cornbread rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the dry ingredients to form a pourable batter.

The step that matters

Bake until browned, not longer. Baking powder starts lifting the batter as soon as it is wet, so the batter should go into the oven promptly. Overbaking drives off moisture and leaves cornbread dry and crumbly, so checking for browning at the stated time matters.

“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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