Skip to main content
Bread

Wheat Corn Pone

A steamed corn pone made from bread sponge and corn meal, enriched with eggs, butter and lard, with optional fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Wheat Corn Pone

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. When the bread sponge first rises, stir in corn meal until thick.

  2. Let the mixture rise.

  3. Mix in the eggs.

  4. Mix in the butter and lard.

  5. Mix in the brown sugar, salt, and baking soda.

  6. Add a little suet to enrich the batter.

  7. Add flour if the batter is too thin.

  8. Add fruit of any kind.

Steam and serve

  1. If using leftover batter from the morning, place it in a steamer lined with a thin cloth.

  2. Steam or boil for 30 to 40 minutes until it leaves the side of the pan.

  3. Serve with sauce.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Butter and flour 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

Bread sponge
Ferments and leavens the batter, giving it a light, risen texture.
Corn meal
Thickens the batter and gives the pone its body and corn flavor.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Butter and lard
Add fat for tenderness, moisture, and rich flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with acid in the batter to help it rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Steam until it leaves the side of the pan. Underbaking leaves the centre wet and gummy, while overcooking dries the pone. Testing that it pulls away from the pan shows the starch and egg have set through.

“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.

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesNut BreadNut Bread109 recipesWheat BreadWheat Bread65 recipes