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Stella's Corn Cake

A simple baked corn cake made with milk, cornmeal, eggs, butter, and leavening agents.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Stella's Corn Cake

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the milk, cornmeal, and melted butter.

  2. Add the eggs and stir until well combined.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, and sugar.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.

  2. Bake for 25-30 minutes or 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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Forms the bulk of the cake and gives it its coarse, sturdy structure.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the cake as it bakes.
Milk
Hydrates the cornmeal and adds moisture and tenderness to the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and a softer, more tender texture.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to lift the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that makes the cake rise.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding dry ingredients slowly and stirring until smooth prevents lumps and keeps the leavening evenly distributed, so the cake rises uniformly rather than in pockets.

“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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