Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. 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 the batter
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, combine sour milk or buttermilk, butter, and lard.
Beat the yolks of the eggs until light, then add sugar, salt, and wheat flour.
Stir in enough sifted cornmeal to create a good batter, not too thick.
Finish and bake
Dissolve baking soda in a little milk or tepid water.
Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the batter.
Add the dissolved baking soda last and mix well to avoid yellow spots.
Pour the batter into shallow pans and bake until golden.
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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Milk + wheattop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,418 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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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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Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,373 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + wheattop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,002 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter and flour 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
- Sour milk or buttermilk
- Provides liquid and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cornbread rise.
- Eggs
- Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites add air and lift.
- Cornmeal
- Forms the main body and characteristic corn texture of the bread.
- Wheat flour
- Adds gluten-based structure so the cornmeal batter holds together.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic milk to produce gas that makes the bread rise.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
The step that matters
Adding the dissolved baking soda. Baking soda must be added last and mixed evenly; if it is left in clumps or added too early, it can release gas unevenly, leaving yellow spots and uneven rise.
“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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