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 Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Combine Indian meal, Graham flour, sweet milk, and butter or sour milk in a large bowl.
Stir in molasses and baking soda until well mixed.
Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.
Cook and serve
Steam for 3 hours.
Serve warm.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,429 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Milk + molassestop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,243 recipes
Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
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
- Indian meal
- Provides the main cornmeal structure and body of the bread.
- Graham flour
- Adds a coarse, nutty texture and firmer crumb to the batter.
- Sweet milk
- Hydrates the dry flours and moistens the batter.
- Butter or sour milk
- Adds richness or tang and moisture, softening the crumb.
- Molasses
- Sweetens the bread and deepens its color and flavor.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with acidic sour milk or molasses to produce gas that lightens the batter.
The step that matters
Steam for 3 hours. Steaming cooks the batter gently and keeps it moist. Too little water or heat can leave the bread dense or gummy, so the steamer must stay steadily heated for the full time.
“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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