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 Bread
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, sweet milk, baking powder, melted butter, and salt.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and whites separately until fluffy.
Fold the beaten eggs into the mixture.
Give the batter a final rapid beating.
Bake
Pour the batter into a shallow pan, ensuring it is about 2 inches thick.
Bake until smooth and velvety in texture.
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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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- Cornmeal
- Provides the coarse grain and characteristic corn flavour of the bread.
- All-purpose flour
- Gives the batter structure so the bread holds its shape after baking.
- Eggs
- Add structure and lift when beaten and folded into the batter.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the cornbread rise in the oven.
- Sweet milk
- Hydrates the cornmeal and flour and adds moisture to the batter.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
The step that matters
Folding in the beaten eggs. Whipped eggs hold air that gives lift. Stirring them in hard or overmixing deflates the foam, so the bread bakes up dense. Fold gently, keeping the batter airy.
“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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