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Southern Corn Meal Pone or Corn Dodgers

A quick cornmeal cake baked at high heat, made with butter or lard and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,345 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Southern Corn Meal Pone or Corn Dodgers

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Mix corn meal, salt, and melted butter or lard in a bowl.

  2. Add cold water gradually to form a soft dough.

  3. Mold the dough into oval cakes using your hands.

  4. Place the cakes in well-greased pans.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until the crust is brown.

  2. Serve hot.

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. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Southern corn meal
Forms the bulk of the dough and gives the pone its structure and coarse texture.
Butter or lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and helps the crust brown in the oven.
Cold water
Hydrates the corn meal so it binds into a soft, moldable dough.

The step that matters

Bake in a very hot oven until the crust is brown. A very hot oven sets the outside of the cakes quickly, forming a crust before the interior dries out. Baking too gently can leave the pone pale and dense.

“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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