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South Carolina Corn Pone

A simple cornmeal cake baked in a greased pan, flavored with salt, sugar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,345 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

South Carolina 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

  1. Scald the cornmeal with boiling water.

  2. Add salt, sugar, and butter to the mixture.

Shape and bake

  1. Mould the mixture into oblong cakes using your hands.

  2. Lay the cakes in a well greased pan.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until done.

Serve

  1. Break the cakes apart to serve, do not cut them. Serve very hot.

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

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

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 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

Corn meal
Forms the main structure, as scalding with boiling water swells its starch so the dough holds together.
Butter
Adds fat for a softer texture and richer flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Scald the cornmeal with boiling water. Boiling water hydrates and swells the cornmeal's starch, so the mixture binds into a dough that can be shaped. Water that is not hot enough leaves the grains gritty and the cakes crumbly.

“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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