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 ↓
Hot Corn Bread
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
Boil the cornmeal in water for one hour.
While hot, stir in the butter.
In a bowl, beat the eggs.
Dissolve the baking soda in warm water and add it to the sour milk or buttermilk.
Combine the milk mixture with the cornmeal and beat well.
Add the beaten eggs and salt, then mix thoroughly.
Bake
Pour the batter into shallow pans and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 40 minutes.
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.
-
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
-
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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 bread and gives it its characteristic corn flavor and grainy texture.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
- Sour milk or buttermilk
- Adds moisture and tang, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the bread rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour milk or buttermilk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, contributing moisture and tenderness to the crumb.
The step that matters
Combine the milk mixture with the cornmeal and beat well. The baking soda must react with the acidic milk to release gas for rising, so the batter should be mixed promptly and thoroughly to distribute the leavening evenly before baking.
“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.
More cornbread recipes
You might also like
Bread Pudding336 recipes
Milk Bread Rolls242 recipes
Potato Bread124 recipes
Nut Bread109 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.