Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Corn Pone
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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make the batter
In a large bowl, mix together the thick milk, eggs, sugar, flour, baking soda, and salt.
Gradually add cornmeal until the mixture is as stiff as sponge cake dough.
Fold in the melted butter last.
Bake
Pour the batter into gem pans or pie plates.
Bake until golden brown.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Thick milk
- Provides the liquid that hydrates the cornmeal and flour into a batter.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help give the pone its structure as it sets.
- Cornmeal
- Forms the bulk of the stiff dough and gives the pone its grainy texture.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the batter to lift it and help the pone rise in the oven.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown in the oven.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
The step that matters
Gradually add cornmeal until stiff. Cornmeal absorbs liquid at different rates, so adding it slowly lets you reach the stiff, sponge-cake-like consistency the recipe calls for. Too much cornmeal makes a dry, crumbly pone, while too little leaves it loose and flat.
“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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