Name: To Hake Corn Bread
Ingredients: 1 pint thick sour cream; 1 pint milk; 2 eggs; ½ cup brown sugar or molasses; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon baking soda (saleratus); Indian meal (cornmeal) to make a thick batter; ½ cup butter or lard (if cream is unavailable)

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 ↓

To Hake Corn Bread

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.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

In a bowl, mix the thick sour cream, milk, eggs, brown sugar or molasses, salt, and baking soda dissolved in a little hot water.
Add enough cornmeal to create a thick batter.

Bake

Pour the batter into shallow tins.
Bake for one hour.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour cream: Adds moisture and richness, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cornbread rise.
Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure as the cornbread sets in the oven.
Cornmeal: Forms the body of the bread, giving it its grainy texture and structure.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in the sour cream to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Brown sugar or molasses: Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crust brown during baking.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda. Baking soda needs to be fully dissolved in the liquid so it mixes evenly. Lumps can leave bitter patches and uneven rising, because the leavening only works where it meets acid.

“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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To Hake Corn Bread