Name: Corn Bread.— Mrs. Luke Doe
Ingredients: 2 cups flour; 1 cup corn meal; 2 eggs; 2 tablespoons sugar; 1 tablespoon melted butter; 2 teaspoons baking powder; ¼ teaspoon salt; milk (enough to make a thin batter)

Why it works: Butter and milk 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.— Mrs. Luke Doe

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 the batter

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the flour, corn meal, eggs, sugar, melted butter, baking powder, and salt.
Add milk gradually until the batter is thin.

Bake

Pour the batter into gem pans.
Bake until golden brown.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,165 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,345 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Flour: Provides the main structure that holds the cornbread together as it sets.
Corn meal: Gives the bread its characteristic grainy texture and corn flavor.
Eggs: Bind the batter and help it set firm while adding richness.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown.
Melted butter: Adds fat for tenderness and flavor.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter so the cornbread rises and turns light.

The step that matters

Add milk gradually until the batter is thin. Adding milk slowly lets you judge the consistency, since too much liquid makes the batter runny and too little leaves it stiff. A thin batter bakes into a moist, even crumb rather than a dense one.

“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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Corn Bread.— Mrs. Luke Doe