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Corn Bread with Milk and Egg

A quick corn bread made with cornmeal, flour, milk, egg, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Corn Bread with Milk and Egg

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Bring 1 cup of milk to a boil and pour it over the cornmeal and salt.

  2. Stir well and let it stand for 30 minutes.

  3. Stir in the melted Crisco, sugar, flour, baking powder, and egg.

  4. Pour the mixture into a large pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 30 minutes in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Cornmeal
Provides the coarse, corn-based body and flavor that defines the bread's texture.
Flour
Adds structure so the bread holds together once baked.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds richness and structure as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cornbread rises and turns light.
Milk
Hydrates the cornmeal and adds moisture for a tender crumb.
Crisco
Adds fat that softens the crumb and contributes moistness.

The step that matters

Soaking the cornmeal in boiling milk. Hot milk must fully hydrate the coarse cornmeal before the other ingredients go in. Cornmeal left dry or under-soaked stays gritty and absorbs liquid unevenly, so the 30-minute rest matters for an even, tender texture.

“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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