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Bread

Spoon Bread

A cornmeal bread baked slowly with eggs, butter, baking powder, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Spoon Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Scald the cornmeal with hot water.

  2. Stir in the salt and the yolks of the eggs, and beat well.

  3. Add the melted butter.

  4. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites and the baking powder.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 45 minutes.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites and yolks give the batter lift and a soft, custard-like structure when baked.
White cornmeal
Forms the body of the batter; scalding it softens the starch so the bread turns tender.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the bread rise and stay light.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a moist, tender crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Whites hold air that gives spoon bread its lift. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from collapsing, so the bread bakes up light instead of dense.

“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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