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Omelet Corn-cake

A baked cornmeal omelet made with eggs, milk, butter, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and cornmeal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Omelet Corn-cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Beat 1 egg with ½ teaspoon salt until light.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon melted butter, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1 heaping tablespoon white flour, 1¼ teaspoon baking powder, ½ cup sweet milk, and ½ cup sour milk. Beat well.

  3. Stir in enough cornmeal to make a batter that pours easily.

  4. Dissolve ⅓ teaspoon baking soda in a little warm water and add to the batter.

Assemble and bake

  1. In another bowl, beat 1 egg and stir in ½ cup sweet milk.

  2. Pour the batter into a pan and ladle the egg and milk mixture over the top without stirring.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a rich brown crust forms.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and set into the custardy structure of the omelet.
Cornmeal (in the method)
Provides the main body and grainy texture of the batter.
Sour milk
Adds tang and tenderness, and reacts with baking soda to lift the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Baking powder
Adds extra lift so the omelet rises and stays light while baking.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Ladling the egg and milk mixture without stirring. Pouring the egg mixture over the top without stirring keeps it as a separate layer that sets and browns on the surface, while the batter below stays tender and rises underneath.

“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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