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Old Fashioned Johnny Cakes

A cornmeal pancake cooked on a pan and finished in the oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Old Fashioned Johnny Cakes

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 the batter

  1. Sift together the cornmeal, salt, and sugar.

  2. Melt the butter in the boiling water and pour it over the cornmeal.

  3. If the mixture is too thick, add a little more boiling water.

Shape and cook

  1. Shape the mixture like fish cakes.

  2. Place on a well-greased frying pan and cook until light brown.

  3. Turn and cook the other side until well browned.

  4. Remove from heat and place in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 10 minutes to puff up.

  5. Serve very hot.

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. 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

Cornmeal
Forms the body of the cakes, setting into a firm, starchy structure when cooked.
Boiling water
Hydrates the cornmeal and gives the batter its moisture and pliable texture.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches flavor and helps the cakes brown in the pan.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cooking the cakes until well browned on both sides. Browning in the pan builds flavor and a crisp surface through the Maillard reaction. Pale cakes will taste flat and may be undercooked inside, so cook each side until golden brown before the oven step.

“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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