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Bread

Steamed Corn Bread

A steamed bread made from cornmeal, flour, milk, sugar or molasses, egg, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Steamed Corn Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine sweet milk, sour milk, cornmeal, flour, dark sugar or molasses, egg, baking soda, and salt. Mix until well combined.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased double boiler.

  2. Steam for 3 hours.

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 bulk of the crumb, giving the cornbread its body and texture.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets during steaming.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tang and moisture.
Dark sugar or molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deeper colour and flavour.
Flour
Adds structure and helps hold the batter together.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into a greased double boiler. Grease keeps the thick batter from sticking as it steams. The batter must be fully mixed first so the baking soda reacts evenly and the crumb rises uniformly.

“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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