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Boiled Corn-bread

A moist, sweet cornbread baked after boiling, made with cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, coconut oil, and milk or buttermilk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Corn-bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Sift salt, baking soda, and sugar with cornmeal and flour twice.

  2. Stir melted coconut oil into milk or buttermilk, then pour over the flour mixture.

  3. Beat the mixture for five minutes until well combined.

Boil and finish

  1. Pour into a well-greased mold with a tight lid and place in a pot of hot water, ensuring it doesn't float.

  2. Boil steadily for two hours.

  3. Remove the lid and place in a 350°F (175°C) oven for ten minutes to dry.

  4. Turn out and heat until hot before serving.

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 + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 and gives it its grainy texture.
All-purpose flour
Adds structure so the bread holds together after boiling.
Baking soda
Leavens the batter so it rises and becomes lighter.
Milk or buttermilk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the cornmeal and flour into a batter.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and a mild flavor to the bread.
Cottolene
Adds fat, which tenderizes the crumb and adds richness.

The step that matters

Keep the mold from floating and the water steadily boiling. If the mold floats, the batter cooks unevenly and may leak water inside. Steady heat from the surrounding water cooks the batter gently and evenly, while the tight lid traps steam to keep it moist.

“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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