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 ↓
Spider Corn Cake
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Preheat a skillet over medium heat.
Melt a piece of butter in the skillet.
Make and bake
In a bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, eggs, sour milk, baking soda, sweet milk, sugar, and salt.
Pour the mixture into the skillet.
Add an additional cup of sweet milk without stirring.
Bake for one hour.
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 + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Cornmeal
- Forms the body of the cake and gives it its coarse, grainy texture.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help set the cake's structure as it bakes.
- Sour milk
- Its acidity reacts with the baking soda so the cake rises.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas, leavening the batter.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture and softens the cornmeal as the batter hydrates.
- All-purpose flour
- Adds gluten-forming protein that gives the cake more tenderness and cohesion.
The step that matters
Add an additional cup of sweet milk without stirring.. Pouring the liquid on top without mixing lets it sit over the batter and settle as the cake bakes, rather than being blended in and overworked. Stirring in extra liquid after the leavening has begun can deflate the batter and change its 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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