Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Corn Bread
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Warm the milk in a saucepan.
Stir in enough cornmeal to create a thin batter.
Add the shortening, eggs, and baking powder.
Bake
Preheat the baking tins.
Pour the batter into the heated tins.
Bake quickly.
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 + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the heat.
- Cornmeal
- Forms the main body of the bread and gives it its coarse, grainy texture.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas when heated, helping the bread rise and become light.
- Shortening
- Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and keeps it from drying out.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that hydrates the cornmeal and moistens the batter.
The step that matters
Pouring the batter into the preheated tins. A hot tin starts setting the batter's surface right away, which helps the cornbread release cleanly and bake evenly. Baking powder reacts with heat, so the batter should go into the oven promptly once mixed.
“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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