Skip to main content
Bread

Coen Bread

A quick batter of cornmeal, flour, baking powder, milk, egg, butter, sugar, and salt baked into a golden loaf.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Coen Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Mix the cornmeal, flour, salt, and sugar in a bowl.

  2. In another bowl, beat the egg and milk together.

Make the batter

  1. Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients and mix well.

  2. Add the melted butter and beat thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the baking powder.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into slightly greased layer cake pans.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until brown.

  3. Serve at once.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cornbread rise and become light.
Egg
Adds structure and binds the batter as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Provides structure so the batter holds together once baked.
Cornmeal (in the method)
Gives the cornbread its characteristic texture and corn flavor.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Stir in the baking powder. Baking powder starts releasing gas as soon as it meets liquid, so the batter should go into the hot oven promptly. Waiting too long lets the gas escape and leaves the cornbread flatter and denser.

“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.

More cornbread recipes

Steamed 78Rye 18Southern 15Molasses 14Indian 11Virginia 11 See all 732 →

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipesNut BreadNut Bread109 recipes