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Spoon or Batter Bread

A quick oven-baked bread made from a batter of eggs, buttermilk, cornmeal, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,973 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Spoon or Batter Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in hot water.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and add the buttermilk, cornmeal, salt, sugar, and dissolved baking soda.

  2. Beat thoroughly, then fold in the egg whites beaten to stiff peaks.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes until golden.

  2. Serve directly from the dish with a spoon.

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. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Buttermilk + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter while whipped whites give it an airy, lifted structure.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and tang, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help it rise.
Cornmeal
Provides the coarse, tender body and corn flavor that defines the bread's texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to release gas, helping the batter rise and brown.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites. Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air that gives the bread its lift. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from collapsing out of the batter before baking.

“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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