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Baking

Corn Dodgers

A baked cornmeal cake made with cornmeal, salt, lard or butter, milk, egg, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Corn Dodgers

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very 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 the salt and corn meal together in a bowl.

  2. Make a well in the center and add the lard.

  3. Pour in enough boiling water to wet the meal.

  4. Beat the egg until light, then add the milk.

  5. Once the mixture has cooled, stir it into the corn meal.

  6. Beat the mixture well and drop spoonfuls onto a greased pan.

Bake

  1. Bake in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 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. Butter + milktop 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. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn meal
Forms the bulk of the dough and gives the dodgers their structure and corn flavor.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds richness and structure as it sets in the oven.
Lard or butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the batter.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter.

The step that matters

Cooling the mixture before stirring it into the corn meal. If the mixture is still hot, it can cook the egg and make the batter uneven. Letting it cool first keeps the egg smooth and the batter evenly textured.

“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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