Name: Plain Corn Bread
Ingredients: 1 pint cornmeal; 1 pint sour milk or buttermilk; 1 egg; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 tablespoon sugar (optional)

Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Plain 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make and bake

In a bowl, mix the cornmeal, sour milk or buttermilk, egg, baking soda, salt, and sugar if using.
Pour the batter into greased dripping or gem pans.
Bake for about 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.

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.

Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Cornmeal: Forms the bulk of the batter and gives the cornbread its structure and grainy texture.
Sour milk or buttermilk: Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the bread rise.
Egg: Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets in the oven.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic sour milk or buttermilk to produce gas that lifts the batter.

“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.