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Dessert

Johnny Cake

A sweet cornmeal cake made with sugar, sour milk, butter, ginger, eggs, white flour, and yellow cornmeal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Johnny Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, sour milk, and melted butter.

  2. Add the salt, ginger, and eggs, and stir until well combined.

  3. Gradually add the white flour and yellow cornmeal, mixing until smooth.

  4. If using sweet milk, omit the baking soda and substitute with 3 teaspoons of baking powder.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish and bake for about 30-40 minutes or until golden 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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Ginger + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together412 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise and adds a tangy flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Eggs
Add structure and binding, helping the batter hold together as it bakes.
Yellow cornmeal
Provides the main body and coarse, grainy texture of the cake.
Butter
Adds fat for richness, tenderness, and moisture in the crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust turn golden brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour and cornmeal until smooth. Wheat flour forms gluten when mixed, so overmixing can make the cake tough. Stop once the batter is smooth and evenly combined.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, butter, egg, flour, corn):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, butter, egg, flour, corn. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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