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Bread

Corn Bread

A baked cornmeal loaf made with cornmeal, bread sponge, molasses, baking soda, and Graham flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Corn Bread

Why it works: Molasses and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,429 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Corn Bread

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

  1. Scald the cornmeal and let it cool.

  2. Add the bread sponge, molasses, and baking soda to the cooled cornmeal.

  3. Mix in enough Graham flour to achieve a stiff cake batter.

Rise and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into tins and let it rise until light.

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for one 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.

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.

  1. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Bread + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,383 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Bread + molassestop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

Bread and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,383 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 main body of the bread, giving it its characteristic grain and crumb.
Bread sponge
Ferments and aerates the batter so it rises and becomes light.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crust brown during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas, adding lift to the batter.
Graham flour
Adds gluten-forming protein and bulk, giving the batter enough structure to hold its shape.

The step that matters

Let the batter rise until light. Under-rising leaves the loaf dense, while the gas trapped during rising gives the bread its lightness. The batter should look visibly puffed before it goes into the oven.

“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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