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Spider Corn Cake

A sweet corn and flour cake baked with eggs, milk, butter, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Spider Corn Cake

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Spider 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. Mix and sift together the corn meal, flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt.

  2. Beat the eggs very light and add the sweet milk.

  3. Stir this into the dry mixture.

Bake

  1. Melt the butter in a shallow round pan.

  2. Pour the mixture into it.

  3. Pour 1 cup of sweet milk over the mixture, but do not stir.

  4. Bake for about 30 minutes in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  5. When done, it should have a streak of custard through it.

  6. Cut and serve on hot plates.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Indian corn meal
Forms the body of the cake and gives it its coarse, grainy texture.
White flour
Adds structure so the cake holds together when cut.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the cake rises and turns light.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking to give structure.
Sweet milk
Provides moisture and liquid so the dry ingredients hydrate into a batter.
Butter
Greases the pan and adds richness and browning at the edges.

The step that matters

Pouring the extra milk over the batter without stirring. The cup of milk poured on top must stay separate so it sinks and bakes into a custard layer, which is the streak the cake should show. Stirring would blend it in and lose that layered custard.

“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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