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 ↓
Corn Gems
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 the batter
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, mix the egg, sour milk, cornmeal, flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda.
If using sour cream instead of sour milk, omit the butter.
Alternatively, use sweet milk and ½ teaspoon baking powder.
Pour the batter into gem pans.
Bake
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as the gems set.
- Cornmeal
- Gives the gems their grainy texture and corn flavor.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the crumb together.
- Sour milk
- Its acidity reacts with baking soda to help the gems rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
- Butter or shortening
- Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
The step that matters
Bake until golden brown. Browning comes from the Maillard reaction and caramelization, which build flavor and crust. Pulling the gems early leaves them pale and doughy inside, while overbaking dries them out.
“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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