Name: Famous Southern Corn Bread
Ingredients: 1 egg; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon baking soda (use more if milk is very sour); 2 cups buttermilk; white cornmeal (enough to make a thick batter); butter or oil for greasing

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 ↓

Famous Southern Corn Bread

Ingredients

1 egg
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda (use more if milk is very sour)
2 cups buttermilk
white cornmeal (enough to make a thick batter)
butter or oil for greasing

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).
Grease a bread pan or muffin tins.
Heat the pan until smoking hot.

Make the batter

In a bowl, combine the egg, salt, and baking soda.
Add the buttermilk and mix well.
Gradually stir in enough white cornmeal to create a thick batter.

Bake and serve

Pour the batter into the hot pan.
Bake until golden.
Serve hot.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Buttermilk + buttertop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,674 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Egg + buttermilktop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,986 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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.
Buttermilk: Adds moisture and tang, and its acidity activates the baking soda.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that lifts the cornbread.
White cornmeal: Provides the main body and the coarse, crumbly texture of the bread.

The step that matters

Heat the pan until smoking hot before pouring in the batter. A very hot pan starts the crust setting and browning the moment the batter touches it, which gives a crisp edge and helps the bread rise evenly instead of sticking or spreading.

“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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White Cake431 recipes

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Famous Southern Corn Bread