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Corn Cake, Muffins, Etc

A sweet, sour milk-based corn cake made with rye flour, cracked wheat, and corn meal, baked after steaming.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Corn Cake, Muffins, Etc

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

  1. Mix the corn meal and cracked wheat, making a stiff batter with a spoon.

  2. Let the batter stand overnight.

  3. In the morning, add the Graham and rye flour, and enough sour milk to form a pourable batter. Stir well.

  4. Four hours before dinner, add the sugar (or raisins) and the dissolved baking soda. Beat thoroughly.

  5. Pour the mixture into an oiled pan and cover.

Steam and bake

  1. Place the pan in a steamer.

  2. Keep the water at a fast boil for four hours without uncovering.

  3. After four hours, brown the bread in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 15 minutes.

  4. Serve.

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. Rye + wheattop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Wheat + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together465 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Wheat + milktop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Rye + corntop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together182 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn meal
Gives the bread its coarse, grainy body and a hearty structure.
Cracked wheat
Adds chewy texture and bulk, absorbing moisture during the long soak and steam.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the bread rise and adds tang.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas, lifting the batter as it steams.
Rye flour
Adds earthy flavor and a denser crumb through its different gluten-forming behavior.
Graham flour
Contributes nutty, whole-grain flavor and a coarser, tender texture.

The step that matters

Keep the water at a fast boil for four hours without uncovering. Steaming needs a steady supply of hot steam; letting the lid lift or the water drop lowers the temperature and can leave the bread dense and gummy.

“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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