Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Corn Bread
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, mix cornmeal, flour, sour cream (or milk), melted butter, cream of tartar, baking soda, sugar, and salt.
Beat in the eggs until well combined.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.
Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
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.
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
- Cornmeal
- Gives the bread its coarse, grainy texture and corn flavor.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides gluten structure so the bread holds together.
- Sour cream or sweet milk
- Adds moisture and richness to the batter.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavor.
- Cream of tartar and baking soda
- Acidic and alkaline pair that reacts to lift the batter.
The step that matters
Bake until golden brown. Baking soda and cream of tartar start producing gas as soon as they are mixed with liquid, so the batter should go into the oven promptly. Stopping the bake when the top is golden brown, rather than pale, avoids a dense, underbaked center.
“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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