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 Cake
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare the batter
Scrape and press the grains from the corn.
Boil the sweet milk and stir in the butter and flour.
Carefully add the beaten yolks of the eggs.
Mix in the corn and a pinch of salt.
Fold in the beaten egg whites.
Bake
Bake in deep tins at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes.
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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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter and flour 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
- Green corn
- Provides the main body and sweet corn flavour of the cake.
- Eggs
- Yolks enrich and bind the batter; whites, folded in, lighten its texture as it sets.
- Flour
- Thickens the boiled milk and butter mixture, giving the batter structure as it bakes.
- Sweet milk
- Forms the liquid base that carries the batter and adds moisture and tenderness.
The step that matters
Fold in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air when beaten, and folding gently keeps that air in the batter. Stirring vigorously would deflate the foam, leaving a denser cake once it sets in the oven.
“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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