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Corn Bread Made with Ko-nut

A cornmeal batter with buttermilk, molasses, egg, flour, baking soda, salt, and Ko-nut baked into a loaf.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour 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 ↓

Corn Bread Made with Ko-nut

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the cornmeal, buttermilk, baking soda, molasses, egg, Ko-nut, flour, and salt.

  2. Stir the mixture well until fully combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.

  2. Bake for 1 hour 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.

  1. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Buttermilk + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Buttermilk + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,986 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 bulk of the structure and gives the cornbread its characteristic grainy texture.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and tang, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the bread rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce carbon dioxide, lifting the batter as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and deep color to the crumb and crust.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps give the crumb its set structure.

The step that matters

Stir until fully combined, then bake promptly. Stirring well distributes the baking soda evenly so it reacts with the buttermilk throughout the batter. Once combined, the batter should go into the oven without delay, since the carbon dioxide produced by this reaction escapes over time and the rise weakens.

“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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