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Bread

Cornbread

A quick batter of cornmeal, pastry flour, sour milk, and butter baked into a loaf.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Cornbread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift cornmeal and scald it with boiling water.

  2. Allow the mixture to cool.

  3. Sift flour, salt, and baking soda together.

  4. Add the sifted dry ingredients to the cornmeal mixture.

  5. Beat the egg and add it along with the sour milk and melted butter to the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a hot greased pan or gem pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for twenty minutes or until 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 main structure and gives the cornbread its characteristic grainy texture.
Pastry flour
Adds structure and a finer, more tender crumb alongside the cornmeal.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter, while adding moisture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that makes the bread rise.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set its structure as it bakes.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness, moisture, and a richer flavour.

The step that matters

Pour the batter into a hot greased pan. Pouring into a preheated, greased pan starts browning and crisping the bottom and edges immediately and helps the cornbread release cleanly. A cold pan gives a pale, soft, sticky crust.

“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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