Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓
Batter Bread
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the batter
Beat the eggs until light.
Stir the eggs into the corn meal.
Add enough sweet milk to make the batter very thin.
Bake
Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for about 30 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.
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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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + corntop 26% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,484 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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 add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
- Corn meal
- Forms the body of the bread, giving its characteristic grainy texture and flavor.
- Sweet milk
- Hydrates the corn meal and keeps the batter moist and pourable.
The step that matters
Thinning the batter with milk. Corn meal absorbs liquid as it sits, so the batter must be thin enough to stay pourable and bake evenly. A batter that is too stiff can bake dense and dry.
“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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