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 ↓
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.
Prepare
Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make the batter
Sift together cornmeal, flour, baking soda, sugar, and salt in a bowl.
Beat eggs and add to dry ingredients.
Pour in enough buttermilk or sour milk to create a stiff batter.
Mix thoroughly and pour batter into a greased baking dish.
Bake
Bake quickly 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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Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,721 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,973 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 main body and the characteristic grainy, crumbly texture of the bread.
- All-purpose flour
- Adds gluten-based structure so the bread holds together better than cornmeal alone.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
- Buttermilk or sour milk
- Supplies liquid and acidity that react with baking soda to help the bread rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in buttermilk or sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown in the oven.
The step that matters
Pour the stiff batter into the dish and bake quickly. Baking soda starts releasing gas as soon as it meets the acidic buttermilk, so the batter should go into the hot oven promptly to trap that gas and rise well before it loses its lift.
“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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