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Corn Drop Cakes

A simple corn batter fried in hot fat until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Corn Drop Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine grated corn and beaten eggs.

  2. Sift baking powder with flour and fold into the corn mixture.

  3. Add melted butter and season with salt.

Fry

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into hot fat and brown on all sides.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Grated corn
Provides the bulk and sweet corn flavour of the cakes.
Eggs
Bind the corn into a cohesive batter and help set the cakes as they cook.
Flour
Adds starch that thickens the batter and helps the cakes hold their shape.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the batter and helps the cakes rise.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the cakes brown.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls into hot fat and brown on all sides. If the fat is not hot enough, the cakes absorb grease and steam instead of browning. Hot fat sears the outside quickly, setting the shape and giving a crisp, golden crust before the centre cooks through.

“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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