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Bread

Soda Bread of Corn Meal

A quick, leavened bread made with cornmeal, wheat flour, baking soda, butter or lard, and sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Soda Bread of Corn Meal

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the cornmeal, wheat flour, salt, and baking soda.

  2. Melt the butter or lard and add it to the dry ingredients.

  3. Pour in the sour milk and stir until combined.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased tin.

Bake

  1. Bake for 40 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.

  1. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

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

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

Cornmeal
Forms the bulk of the crumb and gives the bread its coarse, hearty texture.
Wheat flour
Adds gluten-forming protein that gives the loaf more structure and holds it together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity of the sour milk to release carbon dioxide, so the bread rises.
Sour milk
Supplies the acid that activates the baking soda and adds moisture and a tangy flavor.
Butter or lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and adds richness.

The step that matters

Pour in the sour milk and stir until combined. Baking soda starts releasing gas as soon as it meets the acidic milk, so the batter should be mixed briefly and moved straight to the tin and oven. Overmixing toughens the gluten in the wheat flour and makes a dense loaf.

“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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