Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
Corn Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, sugar, cream of tartar, and baking soda.
Add melted butter and enough sweet milk to create a soft batter.
Bake
Spoon the batter into a gem pan.
Bake until golden brown.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Provides the corn flavor and the coarse, crumbly texture of the cakes.
- All-purpose flour
- Supplies gluten-forming structure so the cakes hold their shape.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown through caramelization.
- Unsalted butter
- Adds fat for tenderness, moisture and rich flavor.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidic ingredient that reacts with baking soda to help the cakes rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that lightens the batter.
The step that matters
Add the milk gradually to a soft batter. Too much liquid makes the batter runny and the cakes spread or turn dense, while too little leaves them dry and crumbly. Adding milk until the batter is soft lets the leavening work evenly and gives a tender crumb.
“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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