Name: Old-fashioned Johnny Cake
Ingredients: 2 cups cornmeal; 1 cup flour; 1 pint buttermilk; 1 heaping tablespoon lard; 1 heaping teaspoon baking soda; ½ cup sugar; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Old-fashioned Johnny Cake

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

Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and bake

In a large bowl, combine the cornmeal, flour, buttermilk, lard, baking soda, sugar, and salt. Mix until well combined.
Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.
Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until golden brown.

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.

Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,721 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,973 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal: Provides the main body and coarse, crumbly texture of the cake.
Buttermilk: Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas, lifting the batter as it bakes.
Lard: Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes to a moist texture.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Flour: Adds structure so the batter holds together while baking.

“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.