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Dessert

Corn Dodgers

Corn Dodgers are small baked corn cakes made with cornmeal, water, sugar, lard, salt, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Corn Dodgers

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Scald the corn meal with enough boiling water to make a stiff batter.

  2. Add sugar, lard, salt, and beaten eggs to the mixture.

  3. Mix all ingredients quickly and thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Drop by tablespoonfuls into greased pans, ensuring they do not touch.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 20 to 30 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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  2. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

  3. Corn + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (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 main body of the dodger, setting into a firm, starchy crumb as it cooks.
Boiling water
Scalds the corn meal, softening its starch so the batter becomes stiff and workable.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help the dodgers set firm and hold their shape while baking.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and helps the dodgers brown on the outside.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Mix all ingredients quickly and thoroughly. Once the batter is stiff, it can develop uneven texture if mixed slowly or unevenly, and thorough blending ensures the fat, eggs, and sugar are evenly distributed so every dodger bakes consistently.

“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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