Skip to main content
Dessert

Sour Milk Corn Cake

A batter of flour, cornmeal, and sour milk baked into a cake.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Sour Milk Corn Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift and mix the flour, corn meal, salt, and baking soda together.

  2. Beat the egg until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the sour milk to the egg and mix well.

  4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and beat until combined.

  5. Melt the drippings and add to the mixture, then beat well.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a shallow pan and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 25 minutes.

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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Corn meal
Gives the cake its coarse texture and characteristic corn flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity of the sour milk to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Sour milk
Supplies moisture and acidity, which activates the baking soda for lift and tenderness.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets in the oven.
Drippings
Adds fat for moisture, tenderness, and savory flavor.

The step that matters

Combining the wet and dry ingredients. Mix only until the batter is combined. Overbeating develops gluten in the flour, which can make the cake tough and dense, while the baking soda reacts quickly once it meets the sour milk, so the batter should go into the oven promptly.

“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.

You might also like

Corn CakeCorn Cake90 recipesCorn Starch CakeCorn Starch Cake89 recipesCorn CakesCorn Cakes22 recipesGreen Corn PuddingGreen Corn Pudding14 recipes