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Dessert

Drop Corn Cakes

Drop Corn Cakes are made by mixing cornmeal, boiled grits or hominy, eggs, butter, and milk, then baking spoonfuls until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Drop Corn Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Combine cornmeal, boiled grits or hominy, and eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add the butter and mix well.

  3. Thin the mixture with milk until it can be dropped from a spoon.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto a baking pan.

  2. Bake until golden brown.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure as the cakes set in the oven.
Cornmeal
Provides the main body and corn flavor of the cakes.
Boiled grits or hominy
Adds soft, moist texture and body to the batter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavor and tenderness.
Milk
Loosens the batter so it drops from a spoon and stays moist.

The step that matters

Thinning with milk. The batter must be loose enough to drop from a spoon but not runny, since too much liquid spreads the cakes and makes them heavy and pale. Add milk gradually and check the consistency before dropping.

“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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