Name: Louisiana Corn Bread
Ingredients: 1½ cups Indian meal; 1½ cups corn flour; ½ cup sugar; 2 teaspoons baking powder; ½ teaspoon salt; 2 eggs; 1 tablespoon butter; Sweet milk (enough to make a thin batter)

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 ↓

Louisiana 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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, combine Indian meal, corn flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
In another bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the melted butter.

Make and bake the batter

Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and stir in enough sweet milk to create a thin batter.
Pour the batter into a shallow pan and bake for 30 minutes.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,165 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,345 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Indian meal: Provides the main coarse cornmeal body and the characteristic grainy texture of the cornbread.
Corn flour: Adds finer corn particles that help the batter set into a tender crumb.
Eggs: Bind the batter and help it set into a structured, cohesive crumb when baked.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter so the cornbread rises and becomes light.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Butter: Adds fat for richer flavour and a softer, more tender crumb.

The step that matters

Adding the milk to make a thin batter. Cornmeal absorbs liquid slowly, so the batter must be thin enough to hydrate the grains fully. If it is too thick, the cornbread bakes dry and crumbly.

“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.

Corn Cake90 recipes

Corn Starch Cake89 recipes

Corn Cakes22 recipes

Green Corn Pudding14 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The 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.

Louisiana Corn Bread