Name: Raised Corn Bread
Ingredients: 1 quart buttermilk; ½ cup yeast; 1 pint dry bread crumbs; ½ cup sugar; 2 eggs; 1 teaspoon baking soda; ¼ teaspoon salt; cornmeal (enough to make a moderately stiff batter); butter (for greasing)

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Raised Corn Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

Combine buttermilk and yeast in a bowl and let it sit overnight.
Add bread crumbs, sugar, eggs, baking soda, salt, and enough cornmeal to form a moderately stiff batter.
Stir well.

Steam and serve

Grease a tin pudding form or bucket.
Pour the batter into the greased tin pudding form or bucket.
Let the batter stand for 1-2 hours until it is light.
Place the bucket in a pot of boiling water.
Steam for 1.5 to 2 hours.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,973 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Buttermilk: Provides acidity and moisture that keep the batter tender and react with baking soda.
Yeast: Ferments the batter overnight, producing gas that helps it become light.
Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure as the cornbread sets during steaming.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to release gas, helping the batter rise.
Cornmeal: Forms the body of the batter, giving the cornbread its grainy structure.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the crumb stay soft.

The step that matters

Letting the batter stand until light. The batter must rise before steaming. If it is under-rested, the crumb stays dense; the gas from yeast and baking soda needs time to expand the batter's structure.

“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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Raised Corn Bread