Name: Breakfast Corn Cake
Ingredients: 3 cups cornmeal; ½ cup all-purpose flour; 1 cup buttermilk or sweet milk; water; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 tablespoon sugar or molasses; melted butter; coarse sea salt

Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Breakfast Corn Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

Mix cornmeal, flour, buttermilk, and water in a bowl.
Let the mixture sit overnight.

Finish and bake

In the morning, add baking soda, sugar or molasses, melted butter, and salt.
Stir until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

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.

Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,721 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,973 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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: Forms the bulk of the cake and gives it its coarse, grainy structure.
All-purpose flour: Adds some gluten-forming structure so the cake holds together better than cornmeal alone.
Buttermilk or sweet milk: Provides the liquid that hydrates the cornmeal and adds moisture.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in buttermilk to release gas, helping the cake rise and lighten.
Sugar or molasses: Adds sweetness and helps browning on the crust.
Melted butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.

“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.