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 ↓
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
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, you can omit the butter.
Alternatively, use sweet milk and 1½ teaspoons baking powder.
Bake
Grease gem pans and pour the batter into them.
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 + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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).
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
- Egg
- Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
- Cornmeal
- Provides the coarse, crumbly texture that defines the corn cake.
- Flour
- Gives the cakes body and holds their shape while baking.
- Sour milk
- Adds moisture and tang, and reacts with baking soda to help the cakes rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
- Butter or shortening
- Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the batter.
The step that matters
Bake until golden brown. Baking soda needs the acid in sour milk to react quickly, so the batter should go into the hot oven promptly after mixing. Baking until golden brown sets the crumb and gives the crust its browning, while stopping before the cakes dry 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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